


hope, for a destination

by orphan_account



Category: SKAM (Norway), Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American Isak, Atheism, Bisexuality, Break Up, Canon Gay Character, Coming Out, Current Events, Emotional Sex, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, French Even, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Jonas isn't white, M/M, Misgendering, Multi, Non-Binary Eva, Pansexual Character, Political Asylum, Politics, Polyamory, Racism, Religion, Secret Organizations, Self-Discovery, Sensate Cluster(s), Sensate Sex, Sexism, Sexual Content, Tags May Change, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, World Travel, accidental misgendering, or Bi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Buried underneath the stress of his job and his strained relationship with his girlfriend, Isak has no time for illness, no time for this never ending headache. He also has no time for the people that seem to be invisible to everyone else around him that, for some ungodly reason, never seem to speak English.Or, a Sense8 au where Isak's headache leads him to see people, Even's a sexy French bad guy, Noora's looking for refuge in a place where there statistically isn't any, Eva's just trying to keep an apartment in the most expensive city in Canada, Mahdi's confused about the US education system, Mikael's doing anything to avoid looking at himself in mirrors, Jonas is fighting the good fight from 8,000 miles away, and Yousef is just desperately missing his ex-girlfriend.
Relationships: Eva Kviig Mohn/Jonas Noah Vasquez, Eva Kviig Mohn/Noora Amalie Sætre, Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen, Isak Valtersen/Jonas Noah Vasquez, Mahdi Disi/Original Character(s), Mikael Øverlie Boukhal/Adam Malik, Mikael Øverlie Boukhal/Even Bech Næsheim, Noora Amalie Sætre/Jonas Noah Vasquez, Yousef Acar/Sana Bakkoush, if you can think of a pairing including the characters, you'll probably get it so
Comments: 32
Kudos: 61





	1. peculiar

**Author's Note:**

> this is just something i'm working on in my free time, so don't expect regular updates (not that I'm any good at that anyway lmao) hope you enjoy!
> 
> You don't have to have watches Sense8 either for it to make sense, because it's explained in the text :)
> 
> Also this is set during the course of Sense8 for those of you who have seen the show (in the aftermath of the invention of the neural graft)! If not, I totally recommend! it's on netflix; check it out!

Isak's had this fucking headache for two straight weeks. Nothing has provided him with relief from the ache behind his eyes and it continues to hinder him. Light burns, sounds send daggers through his ear drums, and vibrations from life in the city turn his bones to glass. 

He can't work, can't drive, can't eat, and he certainly can't focus. His life revolves around closing the blinds and laying in his bed with a pillow around his ears to dull out the sound of the world outside his windows.

His girlfriend is also a thorn in his side and has been since Isak met her. She doesn't seem to care that the light burns his eyes like acid and the meds he's taking to sleep are giving him weird, fucked up dreams. She doesn't care that he can't even stand the sound of her breathing because the noise is too much and makes him feel like he's an inch from death.

She also doesn't seem to care about Isak himself, but that's another thing entirely.

He calls out for the 3rd work day in a row, knowing it'll be easy to find a substitute this early on, and turns off all his alarms. He takes a couple sleeping pills and rests his head gently on his pillow.

He sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning for hours on this early Monday morning in late January, dreaming off fresh snow and the smell of cigarettes, of warm bread and pale hands.

When he wakes, it's with the taste of freshly buttered bread on his tongue. These fucking dreams are so vivid, he's sure he can taste it, can feel the slip of butter on his tongue. It’s almost like he was there, wherever the dream took place, eating freshly baked bread with homemade butter, and the feeling makes his stomach growl and his headache even worse.

Isak checks the clock, 4:18 in the morning, and groans, pressing his closed fists into his eyes to relieve some pressure, which doesn't work. He doesn't know what to fucking do.

He sits there for who knows how long when there's a knock at his door. The sound reverberates through him like his eardrums are shattering and he cries out, in pain and shock.

The walk to the door is agonizing, even though his apartment is dark except for the flickering light of the muted TV, and he nearly falls over in a spell of dizziness twice.

He peeks out of the peephole to see who it is because it is four in the fucking morning and frowns.

"Who is it?" He asks, voice rough and loud.

No one answers and yet the knocking continues. When he peaks the door open, he finds the hallway is empty and motion sensor lights are off, meaning there was no one there to begin with.

What the fuck.

Upon Isak's return to his bed, he discovers his girlfriend, Emma, has spammed him with texts during his slumber. Something about missing an anniversary for their first phone call or something.

Isak is too blinded by pain to care.

He leaves her on read, which he will regret later, and collapses against his pillows, shutting out the world and not bothering to care in his pained state. 

* * *

Isak dreams of a man crying in agony in an otherwise empty hotel room. He is perhaps 30 or so, covered in sweat and nearly naked in a pair of tight blue briefs and rainbow colored socks. His hair, fiery and short, is wild and unkempt and his face is red with pain. 

Isak gets the feeling he knows him. Has never met him, but somehow they know one another. The man bites down hard as another wave of pain overcomes him and his fists rip the thin, thread-bare hotel sheets to shreds as he tries to stay quiet. Maybe he’s in trouble and hiding? Or just trying not to get kicked out? 

The man, who Isak somehow gets the feeling is named Eskild, tosses his head back and covers his mouth with both hands as he sobs and screams in agony. It feels like the build up to something, but to what? What could be the resolution here? The climax? 

Eskild screams again, blood on his otherwise neat teeth, and then finally the end comes. His pain ebbs and in its absence joy floods his chest. It’s almost as if Isak can feel it, can feel Eskild’s elation, can feel the relief of the pain ending. Can see the end has finally come. 

“My children,” the man whispers, crying softly as his chest rapidly rises and falls. “My beautiful children.” 

Isak turns, sensing movement beside him, and sees 7 people. All dressed differently, with different ethnicities and genders, they stare back at him. Isak feels as though he’s looking through a mirror somehow, like he is these 7 strangers, all different and yet so eerily the same. He is as much a part of them as they are of him. 

When he blinks, the scene dissolves, leaving him staring at himself in the mirror of his bathroom with joyful tears streaming down his face. 

* * *

Isak in a restaurant eating spaghetti with a fork halfway to his mouth.

This must be a fucking dream. He must be like lucid dreaming or something. Jesus Christ.

There's a beautiful brown-haired man sitting across from him eating a burger and fries. The heat is stifling and dry, so he’s obviously not in Seattle, which is cold and damp.

Isak must be looking on in wonder or something, because the beautiful boy says, "What are you looking at, mate?" in a perfect Australian accent.

As Isak opens his mouth to say, “You,” he also turns his head to the right. The restaurant is busy and people talk, all in similar accents, and Isak makes eye contact with another one of the most beautiful people he's ever seen as the entire place goes silent. They look into each other's eyes for only a second before Australia and the immense heat and the beautiful men are gone and Isak is back in his bed.

He rolls onto his back, puzzled, and wonders what the fuck just happened.

* * *

Isak has similar vivid dreams for the next few weeks, but nothing more than that. Just dreams and peculiar tastes and smells and feelings...until his headache breaks in late February. 

He's at work grading papers, head bent over his desk with the lights dimmed, when the pain that he’s felt endlessly for a month breaks like a pregnant woman’s water. He sighs in pure, absolute relief and leans back in his chair, arms dropping to his sides. The relief is all encompassing, all consuming. He has never felt anything like it before and doubts he ever will again. 

His eyes roll around in freedom for the first time in weeks and he laughs, so happy he tears up. 

“Oh, my God,” he says as he wipes at his eyes. “Oh, God.” 

“Où suis-je?” 

Isak looks up suddenly as a man appears in front of him. He looks somewhat familiar and stunningly gorgeous. He has light, tousled hair and confused blue eyes. He's tall and skinny and a fucking stranger standing in the middle of Isak’s classroom in an American high-school. 

Isak sobers up immediately and stands, arms crossed over his chest. He is all business when it comes to his job and usually doesn't forget appointments, but today must have slipped his mind. 

“Are you a parent?” Isak asks firmly, even though this guy can’t be more than 25. “I didn't realize I had a meeting scheduled—” 

“C'est quoi ce bordel?” He mumbles and Isak recognizes it as French. “T'es Americain? Comment suis-je ici? J'étais en Chamonix!” 

“American?” Isak is fucking lost. “Yes. Oui. This is the US. Seattle.” 

Isak doesn't know French at all. Well, he knows a little, but not enough to come even close to conversing. Fucking high school French was never a priority for him. Besides that, what the fuck is going on in this beautiful Frenchman's head? How do you end up in the United States by accident?

“Ce…” He starts to say. “Ce...les États-Unis.” 

“J'suis aux États-Unis?!” Accompanied with beautifully raised eyebrows. 

“Oui.” 

_“Jésus Christ.”_

Isak and the man just look at each other again. Isak's headache may be gone, but it seems he's got a new problem: he's losing his fucking mind. 

Who the fuck imagines up random beautiful French men who taunt and yell and scream? 

“Do you speak any English?” 

“Oh, _merde,”_ he curses, rolling his eyes as he carries on dramatically. _“Les Americains!_ Vous pensez que l'anglais est la langue la plus importante! Les autres pays...nous sommes si stupides, bon? Vous _êtes_ stupide.” 

“Woah,” Isak says with wide eyes. 

He understood little to nothing of that. How does his mind remember this much French unconsciously to create this image? Does he have a brain tumor or something? For fuck’s sake. He needs to make a doctor's appointment or something. 

“Calm down—” 

“‘Calm down’?” He snaps. “‘Calm down’?!” 

“Yes. Restez calm!” 

The beautiful man leans in really close to Isak's face, so close Isak can see freckles on his nose and the short hairs growing back in on his chin. He holds his breath, waiting for a strike or a shout. 

_“You,”_ he whispers, calm rage, pointing his finger in Isak’s face “calm down.” 

“I am calm. Je suis calm.” 

“How did I get here?” 

His accent is thick and gorgeous and Isak can feel his breath against his skin. The Frenchman is extremely beautiful and also extremely angry. _C’est la vie,_ Isak supposes. Or perhaps _c’est les francais._

“I don't know. Where were you?” 

“Working.” 

“In France?” 

He rolls his pretty blue eyes again, “Yes, you big American _idiot_.” 

“This is a dream, right?” 

“We share this nightmare? No, I do not think so.” 

“Fuck.” 

“Yes, that's correct. Fuck.” 

“Where in France?” 

“Chamonix—” 

As quick as he appeared, he evaporates like steam. Isak's office door flies open and children bustle in, chattering obliviously as Isak looks around for the strange Frenchman. 

He, like Isak's headache, is miraculously gone. 

* * *

Isak dreams that night of golden hands and brown eyes. He thinks of his best friend from high school and hot summers spent by the ocean. He thinks of champagne and apple turnovers, two things he's never much liked before. 

He wakes with the smell of weed in his nose, but not in his house, and finds his girlfriend, Emma, making loud noises in his kitchen when he goes to brush his teeth. 

“You should probably get dressed,” she says, standing in front of the only thing Isak wants—coffee. 

“Why?” Isak looks at her sleepily. 

He's been thinking of breaking up with her for the past couple months, but can't muster up the courage or the energy. Besides, she's a flight attendant and is only needy when her phone isn't on airplane mode, so he doesn't mind her company much. 

The sex is shit, though, and so is her emotional support. He often feels like he has a broken leg and she is only one of two necessary crutches. He wonders if she feels the same way. 

If so, why doesn’t she break it off either? Why is everything always up to Isak to decide? 

Perhaps they deserve each other. 

“You have class in, like, half an hour.” 

“What time is it?” He's instantly more awake as he glances at the stupid analog clock and tries to put it together. 

7 am? She let him sleep until 7 am? Class starts in half an hour! 

“You turned off my alarms?!” 

“I thought you could use the sleep,” she says, sounding as if she was actually trying to help him and not furthering her own agenda. “I'm sorry, babe. Don't be mad.” 

“Mad?!” He is too late to be mad! 

He turns around and flies though his morning routine of hair, teeth, clothes, shoes, coffee in 15 minutes, which is about a third of what it usually takes. Emma makes him stop to kiss her on his way out like their lives are a 50’s TV show and he sort of hates every second of it. 

But that's normal, right? Just the 2-year restlessness or whatever. 

He runs like a madman and manages to make it to his classroom with absolutely no time to spare. There are already kids lined up outside his room impatiently, textbooks and backpacks in hand. 

This time, in between one blink and the next, Isak isn't at school anymore as his key slips into the lock. It feels as if his reality has slipped away and he's been dropped into someone else's.

He's standing on a stage with a microphone in his hands and there's a blonde girl next to him with her hand on another mic. A banner in a language Isak simultaneously can and can't read hangs behind them.

Open mic night. поэзия шлема. 

“Who are you?” She asks in a thick, Russian accent. “What are you doing here?” 

“I don't know,” Isak says back and it's the weirdest thing. 

He's pretty sure he's speaking Russian, but he doesn't know any Russian! What the fuck is going on!

“Your Russian is great,” she says suspiciously. 

“So is your English.” 

She furrows her eyebrow and says, “I don’t speak—”

Isak blinks and then he's back at school. His classroom is filled with kids all staring at him with confused eyes, watching him watch them. He must’ve just been daydreaming. 

That’s all, right? Just a daydream. A very vivid, very strange Russian daydream. 

“Um…” He says unsurely, wondering if he’d been hallucinating aloud. “Good morning, class.” 

* * *

Isak is out on his own, looking to pick up some groceries when he sees him. Fiery red hair, tall body, skinny arms. Somehow, Isak knows this man. Remembers him from a shitty hotel room he'd dreamt about weeks ago.

It’s a feeling he has in his chest, like looking at someone and suddenly remembering them. A good feeling, yes, but strange when unexpected. 

The man, who drags a suitcase down the sidewalk outside of the store Isak’s in, looks up. Straight to him. When their eyes meet, the ginger haired man stops dead in his tracks. Isak, who holds a baguette in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, drops everything in absolute shock. When he turns to look over for help as wine dampens his shoes and soaks the floor, the man is beside him in the store. Suitcase and all. 

“What the fuck?” Isak asks, absolutely bewildered. “How are you here?” 

Between blinks, the man disappears, leaving Isak with a mess and a soggy, wine-soaked baguette. When Isak looks outside, the man, still there, stares at him until he’s lost in the crowd. 

* * *

Isak sits down for dinner with Emma later that night after her return from a flight to Japan and his return home from the store. He’s finished grading papers for the night and she’s well-rested, so he knows what’s to come. Disappointing sex, as always. 

He eats slowly, focusing on his phone as she blathers on about this German woman she works with whose accent is, like, _so_ annoying. He wishes he was literally anywhere else. 

When he looks up, he’s actually gone somewhere else. He sits on a bench in what seems to be Turkey, maybe, in the early hours of the morning. At least Isak gets the feeling it’s Turkey and the sun is just barely starting to rise, so he guesses it's morning. 

There’s a boy sitting beside him with a guitar across his lap, strumming the strings as he sings softly to himself. Isak somehow knows his name. 

Yousef. 

_“Selam,”_ Isak says, but he means to say hello. “Hello, I mean.” 

“Good morning,” Yousef says softly. “You’re Isak?” 

“How do you know my name?” Isak looks around, feels the warmth of the Turkish summer, and looks back. 

“The same way you know mine, friend. I don’t know what’s happening to us, but I do know it’s something big.” 

“Have we met before?” 

“No. I believe this is our first meeting. Have you met any of the others?” 

“Others?” Isak shakes his head in utter confusion. “What others?” 

“Oh,” Yousef says sadly. “You’ve been fighting our connection?” 

“What fucking connection? What are you even _talking_ about?!” 

Isak’s so enraged he stands, somehow separating himself from the mysterious guitar player and returning to his kitchen table. Emma’s still across from him, but she’s put down her phone and is poking leftover peas around her plate in circles. He shakes his head in utter confusion, feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed. 

He's literally losing his fucking mind (and he doesn't give a fuck about the grammatical "misuse" of literally. Colloquialisms exist for a reason).

“I...I think we should break up, Isak.” 

That gets his attention. He turns to her, eyebrows furrowed, and asks her why. 

“Because I deserve better than your lackluster lifestyle.” 

Isak literally laughs in her face, which is probably not the right reaction, but he doesn’t care. They both deserve better than staying in this relationship, but only because Isak doesn’t love her and she hates being poor. A teacher’s salary is nothing in comparison to what her pilot boyfriend probably makes. 

“Oh, do you?” Isak grins. “Well, then, pack up your shit and get out.” 

He’s relieved, actually. Maybe now he can find someone he actually likes or at least be happy alone. Maybe the weird daydreams and nightmares will stop, too. 

“Alright. I’ll see you around, then, Isak?” She stands and disappears into the bedroom to pack up her stuff. 

Isak sits back in his chair, wondering if he’ll go fully crazy with her gone or if he’ll get better. Honestly, he’s hoping for the latter, but the future starts to look especially dim when Isak realizes he isn’t _alone_ in the kitchen. 

The blond Frenchman stands behind the kitchen counter shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. He looks regal and elegant and more relaxed than Isak’s ever seen him. Until he turns and lays eyes on Isak and then he just looks pissed off. 

“The stupid American!” He says flatly, speaking in rapid fire French that Isak can somehow understand this time. “What a great surprise. Come to tell me more things in one of the stupidest languages on the planet? Or are you just going to stand there and look pretty?” 

“Je peux faire les deux,” he answers back in French. 

He answers back in French! What the fuck is going on!!

“You can speak French now, _enculé?_ Good for you. Now fuck off.” 

Isak’s world shifts and he’s no longer in his kitchen but someone else’s home entirely. Presumably the beautiful and frustrating frenchman’s. There’s a slice of decadent looking pie in front of him as he sits on a balcony and stares out at the snow-capped mountains in his front yard. Beautiful and cold, like the Frenchman himself. 

When he takes a bite, Isak tastes the sharpness of lemon and the sweetness of meringue. 

“Are you going to follow me around forever?” He asks, eating his own pie across the table from Isak. “Or are you going to go away and leave me in peace?” 

“Am I hallucinating?” 

The Frenchman sighs and rolls his eyes. Calls him a stupid American idiot again. 

“We are connected. You, me, the others. I don’t understand it completely yet, but I will. I’m determined to know the truth of what we are, how we came to exist. My name is Even; I am from France. You’re Isak and you’re from the States. There’s also 6 other members of whatever we are. Have you met them yet?” 

“6 members?” Okay, maybe Isak actually is a dumb American. 

What the fuck is the hot French guy talking about? 

“I have met only a few, but I can sense there are 8 of us total. Theoretically, so should you have the ability. Me, you, Jonas, Mahdi, and Eva. A little over half. Who have you met?” 

Isak is so dazed by his intensity that he answers. He recalls the strange dreams, the moments of daydreams, the weird smells and tastes and sounds. 

“I met Yousef in Istanbul. A blonde Russian girl who was doing karaoke at a bar. You. An Australian guy early on. A red haired man alone in a hotel room.” 

“Noora is the Russian girl, or so Eva says. Jonas is the Australian. I think the ginger is Eskild. I do not know Yousef yet.” 

“No better time than the present, right?” Isak needs to go home and think. 

Needs to sit at his desk and do research for six hours straight. Needs a nap and a drink. Needs some space to be alone. 

He knows Even is right, though, about the connection between them all. Isak, no matter how hard he has denied it, can feel it. Keeps fighting it. Perhaps that wasn’t the wisest decision he’s ever made. 

“I would if I could. I don’t know how this whole process works yet exactly. How and why we end up with each other is still mysterious to me.” 

“What are we? Where do we come from?”

“That man you saw. The red headed guy. I believe he is our father...that he gave birth to us.” 

“Birth...to...us?” Isak shakes his head in absolute confusion and, perhaps, a bit in frustration. “My father’s name is Terje! He was an immigrant from Norway who worked in a travelling circus and died last year of lung cancer. You and I do _not_ share a father.”

For some reason, the idea of being related to this beautiful dickhead upsets Isak more than anything else. He is not related to him. He can’t be. 

“Our emotional father, Isak. The one who woke up this thing...this bond...that we...share. We aren’t related or brothers or anything. We just are a part of something bigger than just us.” 

“I...I can’t deal with this right now.” 

“You don’t have a choice.” 

“I have to go.” He makes the decision and then he’s back in his kitchen, alone again. 

Isak sighs in relief and stands, heads to the bedroom to make sure Emma doesn’t steal any of his shit, but there Even is again, strewn haphazardly across their half made bed. Turns out, leaving isn’t that easy after all. 

“What are you doing?” Isak asks, annoyed. “I said to go.” 

Emma turns to look at him and scoffs, “I’m fucking trying, Isak, but I have to pack.” 

He didn’t mean it to her, wouldn't have been so blunt if he had, but whatever. Even just lays there on his side and smirks at Isak, hair effortlessly ruffled. He’s beautiful and awful at the same time. Unbearable. 

“I wonder what you see in her,” Even whispers. “She is beautiful like a fresh rose, but she does not make you happy. You make her miserable, obviously, so why stay? What are you hiding, Isak?” 

“Nothing.” His heart pounds.

Suddenly, without moving at all, Even is right in Isak’s face. Standing within inches of him. Isak can smell his cologne, can feel his breath, and can still taste the lemon tarte on Even’s tongue. Even smiles down at him, a few inches taller, and touches his cheek gently. 

Isak can’t explain it, doesn’t have words for it, but he sighs in satisfaction. Even doesn’t remove his hand, in fact he turns it so there's more contact, having a similar reaction, but he does smirk. Asshole. 

“I will find out your secret,” he whispers and he drags his fingers down Isak’s cheek to his jawbone, leaving streaks of fire and shock in his path. “I don’t think it possible to keep secrets with a bond like the one we now share.”

Even leans in and Isak stops breathing. Is he going to kiss him? 

Isak’s never kissed a boy before. He’d thought about it a lot in high school, but he thought it was probably just teenage exploration. He met Emma and settled down after college and history was made...but she, and every other girl Isak’s ever dated, never left Isak wanting for something as bad as he wants this. 

With Even’s beautiful face inches from his own, he finds himself hoping for it. Pining for the feeling of his lips, the strength in his arms as he holds him, the passion in the kiss itself. 

Even looks down at his lips and then up at his eyes. 

“But I’m sure you’ll certainly try.” And then he’s gone. 

* * *

Emma packs up her things and spends one final night in their bed. Isak sleeps on the couch, because, despite her protests, he thinks she prefers it this way. Isak is perhaps a little upset that she’s truly leaving. 

He’ll be alone now. Irrevocably, inevitably alone. 

He lays on the worn couch and contemplates his existence. Wonders if the people he’s seeing are his subconscious manifesting so he can understand it or if he’s schizophrenic and has started a descent into true, unbridled madness. 

When he can think about the state of his mind for not one second longer, he reaches for his laptop and sits up. Opens Google and spends hours combing the internet for anything like what he’s experiencing. 

He can find nothing. Nothing at all. In frustration, he closes his laptop and lays back down, irritated enough to squeeze his eyes shut and press his fists into the sockets. When he opens his eyes, there’s a man sitting criss-cross on the floor in front of him in overalls and a striped long-sleeve shirt. 

Eskild. The man who made him drop his baguette. 

“Hello,” he says happily. “My name’s Eskild and I am your father.” 

“Thank God my name isn’t Luke.” Isak’s a little sarcastic and a lot shocked.

“Oh, God, that would’ve been funny!” 

Eskild has a strange accent to match his strange behavior. He’s not American, that’s for sure, but maybe Italian?

“How are you my father?” Isak asks bluntly. “I already have one of those. Or had, I mean. Also, not to point out the obvious, but we look nothing alike.” 

Isak’s hair is blond as sand and he’s significantly shorter than Eskild. Also, Eskild is probably only 5 years or so older than Isak, who is 25, so it’s physically impossible. 

“Sensates, like you and me, have two births. Your first one you survived alone. Your second, you shared with 7 others, as I did and as my other children have. You all shared your first breath on this earth, born at exactly the same moment, and you will share all others you have left in this world.” 

Definitely not an Italian accent. Where is Eskild from? 

“Sensate?” Isak looks for something to ask about and only finds this word. 

He’s so in over his head he can’t even think. 

“Yes. We’re...We aren’t human, in the normal sense. We are _homo sensorium,_ not _homo sapien.”_

“You mean I’m not a human being?” Isak is so overwhelmed. 

What kind of science fiction horror show is he living in? Even the Doctor would be lost if she was put in a situation like this one. 

“Technically no,” Eskild kinda laughs like it’s funny. _“Homo sensorium_ and _homo sapien_ separated because of a genetic anomaly. It’s the same one that separated the _sapiens_ from the _neanderthals_. With this mutation, though, they lost the ability to feel one another’s pain and we kept it.”

“What does that fucking mean, though?” 

“We can share thoughts and talents amongst each other. Once you get a handle on it, it’s so fucking cool. Those in our cluster are extensions of ourselves and so their abilities are now your abilities. Once you master sharing and seeing through their eyes, you will be able to utilize their skills as if they were your own.” 

“Is that how I can speak Russian even though I’ve never spoken Russian before?” 

“Yes. It’s sick how many languages you can speak if your cluster is located worldwide. I gave birth to this cluster about 5 years ago that were all from North America and all spoke only Spanish, which is crazy when you think of the chances of that happening. A monolingual cluster! Incredible odds.” 

“Cluster...you mean the other people in my head?” 

“Yes. You are one of eight. An individual mind from a cluster of them.” 

“Oh, my God,” Isak says in horror, in complete contrast to Eskild’s kind smile. “Oh, my _God!”_

“I’m sorry,” Eskild says, the look falling from his face. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” 

Eskild doesn’t seem to get how much shit he’s dropping on Isak at once. Not human, feel the pain of others, _neanderthals,_ languages, clusters. Fuck! As if Isak didn’t already have enough of a hard time keeping shit straight. 

“Frighten? I’m _horrified._ What the fuck? I’m an entirely different species of human altogether?” 

“Yeah! Once that can share thoughts and ideas and even talents over incredible distances. We can feel love and joy and elation in ways _sapiens_ cannot. It’s fucking incredible! But they also experience pain less intensely, which gives them an immense advantage over us. Sensates like us have to keep it a secret, because of the _sapiens_ innate ability to destroy without feeling the consequences of their actions directly. If you or me were to kill another sensate, we’d feel their deaths as if they were our own. But _sapiens?_ They’re entirely disconnected from that.” 

“Jesus Christ.” 

“He was a _sapien._ Good guy, though, a bit bizarre from what I heard.” 

“You’re overwhelming me.” Isak shuts his eyes as he speaks, deadpan. 

“Sorry,” Eskild says lightly, like he’s not at all. “Didn’t mean to. I know it’s a lot.” 

“Are my parents like me? Like my parents who had sex to produce me? Did _you_ have to have sex with someone to produce us? Or was that an emotional connection as well?” Isak has too many questions and not enough time or wherewithal to ask them. 

“Your parents aren’t like you, most likely. At least no sensates I know have parents who were also sensate. The gene tends to skip generations and doesn’t always get activated in the people who have it. Giving birth as a senate is different and also the same. Any sensate can give birth to a cluster at any point in their lives after their rebirth. It’s something born from emotion, yes, but not always sexual in nature. For instance, an asexual person who never has sex, but is sensate, can give birth to a cluster. I don’t think there’s anyway to avoid it, either.” 

“So there’s no sensate birth control? Jesus Christ.” 

Eskild just smiles happily, but then something darkens his face. Isak can feel his unhappiness, can feel something has spoiled his mood. It’s weird to know how someone is feeling so deeply that it’s almost his own, but also familiar. 

“We will talk again soon, Isak. I hope you’ll open yourself to more opportunities to interact with your cluster.” And then he’s gone. 

Isak sits on his couch and mulls that over for a few more hours. It’s half past 3 when he finally dozes off and it’s only because he can’t keep his eyes open for one more second.

* * *

His alarm goes off at 6:15 and he groans. Fuck his life. 

He shuts his alarm off and drags his exhausted body from the couch to the bathroom to brush his teeth to prepare for work.

“Aren’t you going to shower?” Asks Even, the Frenchman, who sits elegantly on Isak’s closed toilet. 

He has a gun in his hand, holding it casually against his knee as he sips from a mug of coffee. Isak can taste the coffe that he swallows, which wakes him up a little. Nice. An advantage to the whole different-species-entirely thing. Finally!

When Isak tries to see where Even is, it’s a cafe with almost no one in it and his gun is put away in the pocket of his jacket. Not a French cafe, though, because the language on the menu is one Isak doesn’t recognize. 

“Where are you today?” Isak asks, returning to his bathroom instead of dignifying that with a response. He showers at night like a normal person. 

He brushes his teeth in the mirror and waits for Even’s answer. 

“At work,” he says in that seductive accent. “You’re getting ready to teach those American brats?” 

“Yeah. Still early here.” 

Isak somehow knows it’s 10 in the morning where Even is. When he searches for the information, he realizes he knows where he is, too. Brazil. São Paulo. 

“You teach?” Even stands behind Isak in the mirror, so close. 

“Yes...What do you do?” He somehow gets that this a faux-pas for the French. 

They do not talk about work outside of it, but Isak is American and doesn't give a fuck. Fuck social cues and rules and shit. 

“I do for-hire jobs, _mon ami._ I work for the highest bidder.” 

“Who’s on your list today?” 

Isak’s back in the cafe, sitting across from Even with minty teeth, when he nods at the stubby man standing outside the door on his cell phone. He’s wearing a dirty and bedraggled suit, like he’s been pulled through a forest on his hands and knees, and he’s speaking quickly in what might be Portuguese. 

Isak’s never heard the language and doesn’t speak it, so he can’t truly be sure. Maybe one of his cluster does, but he can’t figure out how to access that information yet. Strange to know nothing and everything all at once. 

“Theodore Agolino,” Even says after bringing them back to the bathroom. _“Ce fils de pute?_ He has an account in the Caymans that contains a lot of money that doesn’t belong to him. I’m going to get it back.” 

“Ah.” Isak says, finally getting it. “You’re a hitman.” 

“Not quite,” Even shakes his head, “but close enough. I convince people to see the error of their ways...and I use the money I get to help those who were taken advantage of in the first place.” 

“Who’d he fuck over?” Isak brushes and styles his hair while simultaneously sitting in a cafe in Brazil drinking coffee. 

It’s the weirdest multi-tasking thing he’s ever done, but it feels natural. He does it without thinking. 

“He owns this building in New York City that he wasn’t taking care of. When he was offered a million dollars to test a pesticide inside it off the books, he said yes. Sprayed it in every apartment. Almost everyone got sick, some with cancer, some with lung conditions, others died. He got away with it through a technicality. A clause in their tenant agreement. Most of the people that lived there spoke only Spanish and couldn’t read their contract, which was written in such brutal legal terms that even my lawyer had trouble, so they had no idea what they’d signed up for.” 

“What a shithead.” Isak turns to look at Even who still stands behind him. 

He’s wearing a decadent black suit, like a spy, and he looks incredible in it. He even smells good, which Isak only notices because of how close they are to one another. How weird it is to smell another person who is so far from him. Over 6000 miles away, Even drinks a coffee and watches an American asshole and Isak, from his bathroom in Seattle, is a witness to the entire thing. 

“You’re gonna help those families?” 

“Yes. I’m gonna take him for everything he has and strand him here with nothing but the clothes on his back and the few _reais_ in his wallet.”

“Good.” Isak feels a certain type of way about vigilante justice and is glad Even’s doing something good. 

Someone has to, especially when the policeforce in the US is such a fucking joke.

Even touches Isak’s shoulder with one hand, finger just grazing the skin of his neck. It’s even better than if he had been there, feels so much more intimate. Probably, it’s because everything is better in Isak’s mind, but it feels nice. Isak doesn’t want him to stop touching him. Wants him to slide his fingers behind his neck and pull him closer. 

“Kiss for good luck?” Even asks, sitting across the table in the Brazilian cafe with his shoe just brushing over Isak’s bare foot underneath the table. “I might die.” 

Isak has never really thought about it, has only ever dated girls, but Even is beautiful. He is dangerous and rude and sexy as hell. He realizes he sort of wants Even to kiss him. 

Isak hasn’t had gay thoughts since high school. Oh, God. Maybe it wasn’t teenage exploration! 

Is Isak gay? 

“A kiss?” He says softly, already thinking of how great Even’s mouth will feel against his. “Only if you have enough to pay for it.” 

Even laughs, looking gorgeous under the bright white lights in Isak’s bathroom, and then suddenly stops dead. His face tightens, his muscles contract, his hand drops from Isak’s neck. 

“I’ve got to go,” Even says suddenly, all business, and Isak’s drawn back into his world. “Have a good day at school, _prof.”_

The cafe is still almost empty, but the shithead, Theodore, is inside now, scrambling with the few bills in his wallet to pay for a coffee. Even tosses a couple of bills, Brazilian _Reais_ , onto his table, stands, and goes to button his suit jacket.

Isak can still see the outline of the Glock in his pocket when the connection fizzles and then breaks. He doesn’t get to see what happens, doesn’t even get to know, but he can feel that, for once, a rich man will pay for his crimes.

* * *

Isak meets his next visitor, Mahdi, the next day. He knows just by looking at him that that’s his name. Instead of fighting the connection, he lets it in and gains cool knowledge by doing so. Mahdi Disi, originally from Norway. But he’s not in Norway now. His cafe is in Amsterdam, filled with pastries and coffee and, yes, weed. 

He’s about Isak’s height, dressed in light spring clothes, and seems to be more relaxed than any of Isak’s previous visitors. He hugs Isak like they’ve known each other for years, which they haven’t, but they did, apparently, share their first breath, so close enough, right? 

“I’m Mahdi,” he says, friendly in all the right ways, his accent softening the letters, “and you’re Isak.” 

He’s speaking in English and Isak is speaking in Norwegian. It’s so fucking strange and so familiar. 

“I am,” Isak says, smiling despite himself. “What’s up?” 

“Isn’t this crazy?” He says. “I’m here and you’re there, but we’re together somehow. Wicked.” 

“It is! It’s kinda amazing.” 

“What do you do?” Mahdi asks, sitting in an empty desk in the front row of Isak’s class. “Obviously you’re a teacher, but what subject?”

“English. You’re a personal trainer, right?” And a botanist. 

Mahdi nods and stands, walking around Isak’s classroom with a strangely quizzical look in his eyes. He touches the objects around the perimeter, the posters on the walls, then he smiles. 

“Not all that different from Norway,” Mahdi says. “Thought it would be more bizarre.” 

“If we’d met earlier, you could’ve listened to the pledge. Maybe then you’d see a big difference.” 

In the US, most schools do the pledge in the morning before classes start. Isak’s always thought it was weird and gross, and he hates doing it, but the school requires it. Then, if you chose not to do it, there’s a lot of peer pressure to just stand and bear it. 

“Pledge?” 

“Yeah. Our pledge of allegiance. I don’t think they do that in Norway.” 

If Isak knows the Pledge, then so does Mahdi, so perhaps he can remember it. Maybe he already is. 

“No, they don’t. What else do you do?” 

“Oh, let’s see. Lunch is different, I bet. Wanna see?” 

Isak usually spends his lunch hour in his classroom, because he enjoys the peace. Plus it gives him a chance to grade or work on his lesson plan, so it’s just easier for him to stay. Today, though, he’ll make an exception. 

For one of the special seven strange people in his head. 

Isak walks through the halls with Mahdi, talking about Norway in comparison to Seattle and how different they are, but similar at the same time. 

Isak’s glad no one’s in the hallways to hear him talking to himself. 

When he arrives at the cafeteria, the place is, as always, pure chaos. Children talk loudly over one another, forks scrape plates, someone is banging their fists on the tabletop. It’s chaos, but a familiar kind. One that reminds Isak of his own youth. 

“Is it always so loud?” Mahdi asks. “Do they all eat in one room?” 

“Everything’s loud here. They do all eat in here, yeah, but there are different times for different grades, you know?” 

“Got it. What’s the food look like?” 

Isak steps towards the line and looks inside. One of his students, Arabella, tells him it’s chicken patties and mashed potatoes day. The more simple the meal, the easier it is to fuck it up, apparently. On the side is a juice cup and two sticks of carrots. 

“Those look disgusting,” Mahdi says with a wrinkled nose. “What the fuck is wrong with your system? You guys feed that to your kids?” 

“Blame Betsy DeVos,” Isak says generally and Arabella laughs. 

“As if our problems started with her.” They certainly didn’t, but she’s definitely making things worse for education.

Mahdi looks between them and smiles. Isak’s not sure how, but he knows Mahdi understands because he does. It’s a very strange concept to experience. 

Isak leads Mahdi out of the cafeteria so he can talk to Mahdi, but when he turns, he’s gone, the connection somehow broken up. Isak’s a little sad about it, because he liked Mahdi so far and had been hoping for a glance into Amsterdam, but he guesses he’ll have a literal lifetime to see it through Mahdi’s eyes and goes on with his day. 

* * *

Isak’s apartment is half empty when he returns home to it later that day. He has sixty three tests to grade and the entire weekend to do it. Lovely. 

He orders a pizza and pays extra to have it delivered, because he doesn’t want to leave his house, and then changes out of his work clothes and into sweatpants. 

He sits down in front of the tv on a couch that now has no blankets or uncomfortably decorative pillows and starts to grade the exams as he waits for his pizza. It’s an arduous process, but easier this time because it’s 95% multiple choice. He just wishes he had someone to help him so it would go faster. 

When he looks up, the blonde girl from the open mic poetry thing is sitting at his kitchen counter in pajamas. Her hair is tied up in a bun and there are bags under her eyes. She looks exhausted. 

“Hello,” Isak says softly. “I’m Isak.” 

“Noora,” she says back. “We’ve met before, right?” 

“Yeah, when you were doing poetry or whatever. What’s wrong?” 

She stands up from the chair in his kitchen and walks wearily towards him. When she takes a seat, Isak can tell that it hurts her. Like she’s been wounded somehow. 

“I was attacked today. They got a kick or two in my ribs before someone came to stop them.” 

“Why didn’t you call one of us?” 

She doesn’t respond for a long moment, just looks down at her hands blankly and breathes shakily. She looks terrified and tired, like she needs an escape. Isak suddenly understands why she didn’t. 

“It’s alright. I get it. You thought you were seeing things, so you fought the connection.” 

“I did.” 

“But I’m a real person, you know. I live in Seattle. I teach English here. I had a girlfriend who I didn’t like that much so we broke up. I’m not some image in your head.” 

“How can I know that, though? For sure?” 

Isak takes a look into her world. She’s sitting in her bedroom as someone outside of her room screams. Isak knows it’s Noora’s roommates, arguing about something stupid probably. It’s so late there, just after 4 in the morning, and Isak wishes he could help her. Pick her up and let her stay at his house so she can rest, but he can’t, because she’s 5000 miles away. 

“Do you have your phone?” Isak asks. “I can call you. So we both know for real if we’re crazy or not.” 

“Facetime me, so I know for sure.” 

Isak scrambles for his phone on the couch beside him for his phone, finally finding it wedged between the cushion and his leg, and hands it over to Noora. She looks down at it quizzically, unsure, before she dials her number and calls, handing Isak’s phone back to him. 

Isak is in Noora’s room again as he phone rings. Buzzes. She looks at him in shock and answers the call. 

When Isak looks at his screen, he can see the blurry face of the blonde girl sitting right beside him. Thank God it worked and he’s not losing his mind. 

Instead, his new reality involves seven people who will eventually, according to Eskild, have access to his innermost thoughts, actions, and abilities. How terrifying.

“Hi,” Isak says into the speaker and it echoes in the silence of his living room almost an entire time before Noora’s phone says it. “I’m Isak.” 

Noora laughs, obviously delighted, and Isak shakes his own head in relief. Then he ends the call, because it’s weird to hear Noora laugh and then hear it echo through his phone speaker. 

“I can’t believe this,” Noora says. “This is absolutely incredible.” 

“Did you meet any others yet?” Isak has to know. 

There’s two of them left that he has yet to meet. Only one, though, that even Even hasn’t met yet either. Who could it possibly be? What are they like?

“I’ve met them all except for Mikael. I think Yousef is the only one of us who has met him.” 

“Mikael?” 

“He’s from Mexico...or, well, he lives there now. I think he’s really uncomfortable with the whole thing and he’s fighting the connection hard. Even harder than I did.” 

“That sucks. Fighting it is so much work, so much unnecessary pain.” 

“Seriously! That headache was fucking killer. I had to lecture with the lights turned down, because I physically couldn’t stand the lights.” 

“You’re a teacher, too?” Isak sits up in excitement. “I teach english!” 

“I’m a women’s studies professor at the state university in Moscow. I’m trying to get out of here, though.” 

“Because of the violence?” Isak knows why Noora perches delicately on her bed. 

Knows somehow that her ribs are covered in a thick layer of bandages to restrain the pain from the kicks. 

“Yes. The bigotry here is a big problem for a lot of LGBTQ+ people. I’m a lesbian, you know, and it’s a bad thing to be while living here during this time. Moscow is a bigger city, so in theory I’m safer here than if I was in _Sergiev Posad,_ which is significantly smaller and my hometown, but it’s not ideal. I'm going to apply for asylum in the US.” 

“Yeah?” Isak says and then he has a daunting realization. 

Maybe there are _some_ laws protecting LGBT+ people here, but the US isn’t ideal, either. Hateful things happen every day while Republican politicians try to roll back the few protections they have. Isak distinctly remembers Boston’s boring ass and blatantly offensive straight pride parade, remembers the lynchings, the murders, that lady who wouldn’t sign gay peoples’ marriage certificates. 

He doesn’t want to crush Noora, plus she’s smart and informed enough to probably already know this stuff, so he just smiles at her. Maybe it will be better than Russia, anyway. 

“Well, I look forward to meeting you in person. It’ll be sick to talk to you and have people not think I’m high as fuck and talking to myself.” 

“So that’s why my roommate was looking at me like that!” Noora laughs. “I was talking with Eva and I guess we came back to my place where I was making a sandwich. I thought it was in my head!” 

* * *

Isak wakes up in a bed that isn’t his. He knows immediately that he’s not at home, because the sheets are soft and the blanket is very heavy. It’s nice, the weight of the blanket, but is nothing like his comforter at home. 

He opens his eyes and, instead of the light of the sun to sting his eyes, he’s met with only darkness. In his home, it’s surely after 9 in the morning, so he must be far away if it’s still dark. 

Beside him on the bed is the Australian man that he very briefly met all that time ago when he still had his headache. He’s within inches of the pretty man’s face when he remembers his name. 

Jonas. 

“Hello,” Isak whispers, trying not to startle him. “I’m Isak.” 

“I know.” Jonas doesn’t open his eyes. “We’ve met before...very briefly.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I’m just tired.” 

“And lonely?” 

“Yeah...a bit.” 

“Me, too.” 

Jonas blinks his eyes open and in the almost complete darkness of his bedroom, Isak can see only the shine off his eyes glinting inches from his own. It’s sort of picturesque, the way he’s looking at Isak and the way Isak is looking at him, separated by pretty much the entirety of the Pacific ocean but also right there, so physically close they share breaths. 

“We can be lonely together then.” 

Isak smiles a little at the thought. With all of these people in his head, he’ll never be alone again. Never be so desperate for contact, for friendship, for human closeness. 

Maybe his constant need for closeness was a precursor for being _homo sensorium._ Maybe it shows just how different Isak was from his parents, who were, according to Eskild, in all likelihood _sapiens._ Shows why they couldn’t love him even when he tried so hard to be worthy of it. 

“That sounds nice.” And it honestly does. 

* * *

Isak starts to get more and more visitations from the people in his head. He spends time with Noora where they talk and grade papers, with Even where he bitches and throws insults in French Isak already knows, with Yousef who takes him out to quiet meals in Istanbul, with Mahdi who is super cool. He grows his own weed for his cafe in Amsterdam where he sells croissants with his joints during the day. 

He meets Yousef again who tells Isak about his music career. He’s sort of famous, Isak realizes when he Googles him later. Very popular, especially in Turkey, for the intricate guitar work. He’s not really in the mood to talk, though, and Isak gets it, because he can feel the sorrow leeching off him like cold air off of ice. 

He’s missing someone badly, someone who is very, very far away. Isak feels for him, but can’t say he has personal experience with the matter. He didn’t really love Emma, so her absence was one he hardly noticed. 

Almost five months after his headache breaks, he meets Mikael. Mikael, who fought all of them so hard, is forced to give in. Exhausted, he says nothing to Isak when he meets him, just continues filing papers in a filing cabinet with ever increasing verve. He’s cute, in that strict and buttoned up kind of way, but he doesn’t turn to look at Isak even though Isak knows he can sense his presence. 

_“ ¿Hola_ _?”_ Isak asks and he realizes he’s speaking Spanish. 

So Mikael prefers Spanish. Noted. 

“Mikael?” 

Nothing. His back straightens a bit, but he says nothing and refuses to look at Isak. 

“Come on, man. You know I only come here if you want me here, so what’s up?” Isak touches Mikael on the shoulder and immediately regrets it. 

He shoots up and out of his chair and crosses the room, which seems to be an office or something, in a hurry. Isak must still be wanted, because he just ends up in the bathroom with Mikael when he tries to leave. 

“Mikael, please. Something in you wants to talk to someone, so talk.” 

“Get out.” 

“Excuse me?” Isak almost laughs, because he’s so shocked. 

“Leave! I just want to be alone!” 

“Why? It’s pretty cool once you open up to all the possibilities.” 

“I don’t want this! It’s _disgusting._ Perverted. This thing...whatever it is...it’s a test from God. He’s testing me and my resolve and I won’t give in. So just leave!” 

Isak takes a step back, shocked at the pure anger in his face and soul. He’s truly infuriated, truly disgusted, by this connection that Isak believes is truly pure. Perhaps it is the only pure thing in Isak’s life at all. 

It’s so sad that Mikael has forsaken that because of his beliefs, when it could be considered such a gift. 

“You think this is a curse?” 

“Yes, now leave. I have work to do.” 

Isak tries again, and this time, it sticks. He ends up back in his bedroom with Mikael’s door shut practically right in his face. Rude. 

When he goes looking for another of his cluster, he finds Jonas, who he has met quite a few times. They've shared intimate moments of vulnerability and loneliness, spent hours in the waves off the coast of Australia where he lives surfing, eaten lunches together. They know each other well. 

He’s in his pajamas and he has a bowl in his hand that he’s smoking from. Weed. 

“Bit late, isn’t it?” Isak asks, immediately reaching for it, his fingers brushing Jonas’. 

It’s weird, to smoke a bowl that isn’t here, but it’s nice. Like reliving an old, pleasant memory. When he brings the smoke in, it leaves through Jonas’ lungs. It’s a wonderful feeling, the connection they share, and Isak revels in it. Will miss it when Jonas isn’t here and Isak isn’t there. 

“Long day,” Jonas says, looking adorably ruffled. “Was there something you wanted to say?” 

“I saw Mikael for the first time just now.” 

“Was he mean?” Jonas looks somber and sullen and exhausted. “He was mean to me.” 

“He was. He said...He said this was a test from God...that he wouldn’t give in. He doesn’t want anything to do with us.” 

“He thinks we’re abominations.” 

Jonas looks up at Isak with honey colored eyes and Isak sighs, sits down on the bed beside him. Their bodies press together from their shoulders to their feet and it feels warm. Symbolic. They are more connected than any two _sapiens_ ever will be. 

His touch, from his bare knee to Isak’s, is like the waves of salt water lapping at the sand on an untouched beach. Pleasant, beautiful, inevitable. 

“He thinks we’re a creation of Lucifer. That this connection,” Jonas turns to look at Isak, “that it’s corrupt. That it’s Satanic. Evil.” 

“But it’s not,” Isak whispers into the air between them, feeling drawn to him, feeling like he should be closer than he is to Jonas. “It can’t be.” 

“I know that. I do. I can feel the purity when I’m visiting someone. I can feel how good and pure it is.” 

“How can’t he?”

“I don’t know...but it breaks my heart.” He slumps against Isak, taking back his bowl and bringing the lighter to it. 

After a long moment, he breathes out the smoke, like he’s letting his stresses go. He passes it to Isak and he takes a hit, watching again as the smoke pours through Jonas’ lips. It feels so intimate, this connection he shares with Jonas, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up. 

In fact, he wants to make it last. 

“Can I ask you something?” Isak asks, still looking at the profile of Jonas’ face. 

Strong noise and jaw, freckles, long dark eyelashes. Beautiful and simple and elegant. 

“Yeah, of course.” 

“Can I kiss you?” Isak asks suddenly, not entirely sure where the question is coming from. 

He doesn’t even think about asking it before he does and immediately he’s flooded with regret. Jonas is probably straight anyway. Hopefully, he’ll let Isak down easy. 

Jonas smiles, laughs a little, and looks down at Isak’s lips. Must decide something, because he leans in. 

Isak’s heart stops. He’s never done anything like this before, but this feeling rises up in his chest in a way he hasn’t ever felt before. Kissing any girls, kissing Emma, nothing felt like this. Like waiting for waves to crash on the sand during a brutal thunderstorm, like knowing the inevitable is finally happening, like realizing you’re gay when you’ve been dating women for over a decade. 

“Yeah,” Jonas says, still smiling, so close to Isak’s face that he can see the reflection of himself in Jonas’ eyes. 

Isak swallows hard and then leaps, lets his lips press into Jonas’. It feels like it was always meant to go down like this. Like Isak was meant to have 7 people in his head just to find out he doesn’t like girls. It’s cataclysmic and incredible and infinite. 

Jonas presses his fingers to Isak’s cheek, soft and gentle, and grins against his mouth. He smells good, like cologne and salt water, and his hands are calloused and warm. 

“Can I ask you something else?” Isak says once he pulls away, just enough to rest their foreheads together. 

“Sure.” 

“Are you gay? Am I?” 

“I think that’s for you to decide, mate,” Jonas says softly, grinning as he brushes Isak’s skin with his thumb. “And I’m bi.” 

* * *

Isak meets Eva next. 

He’s standing in the elevator of his apartment building, waiting for the ancient machine to move, when he looks over and a short-haired ginger girl stands beside him. She’s wearing a big fluffy white coat and cute, modern sunglasses over a simple button up shirt and black jeans that are cuffed at the ankles. 

“I’m Eva,” she grins while she talks and her hair is as bright as her smile. “You’re Isak, right?”

She has a slight accent. When Isak speaks, he realizes it’s French. Eva’s french, too? What are the chances?

_“C'est moi. Ça va?”_

“I’m pretty good. Going to work.” 

“Me, too, actually, if this elevator will ever work.” Isak presses the lobby button again and looks for where Eva is. “You’re in Canada?” 

“Vancouver.” 

“I heard that’s an expensive place to live.” 

“I moved here from Quebec after my dad died, but yeah, it is expensive.” 

“So is Seattle. Have you met all the others?” 

“All but Mikael, now. I heard him singing right after the headache began and it was so sad and so beautiful. It broke my heart.” 

“Mikael seems to make a habit of breaking people’s hearts,” Isak says softly. “He’s very confused, I think.” 

“About this? About us?” 

“He thinks we’re cursed or something, when it’s just a genetic anomaly that separated us from the _sapiens._ We are one chromosomal mutation away from them and he thinks it’s demonic or something.” 

“He’s catholic, that much I know. Yousef says he goes to mass, like, every day now, that he spends hours in Confession.” 

“That’s so sad.” Isak feels for Mikael, feels for his confusion. 

Isak is an atheist, has been for a long, long time, but he can understand where Mikael’s coming from. If his parents were die-hard catholics, they probably passed their fears onto him and then they became his own. 

Finally, Isak’s elevator starts to move, but he’s with Eva now, in her world as well as his own, and he sees the streets of Vancouver as she rushes from her apartment as he flies down floors, encased in a metal box. 

She holds her coat close to her ribs as she runs across an intersection, obviously late for work, and he follows her pace. Simultaneously, he gets off the elevator and heads to work. 

When he tunes back in, Eva’s swiping her badge at a register in a cafe painted in all the colors of the rainbow. There are people milling about, drinking and eating and talking, and Isak suddenly knows the name of this place. 

_Fan-Tasse-Tique._ A play on the french words _tasse_ , for cup, and _fantastique_ , for fantastic. In the window, there’s a sticker that calls this place a safe space. 

Safe space for what exactly? Isak wonders, but then he turns and Eva’s wearing a lanyard that says her name and pronouns and he gets it. 

Then he reads it and realizes he’s been an ass this entire time. Eva’s pronouns are they/them, not she/her. He was an asshole for assuming instead of knowing. If he’d been looking for it, he could’ve found the information easily or he could've just asked. It’s as much a part of their identity as their red hair is. 

Instead of mentioning it, he just makes a note to do better. To be a better ally, a better friend, a better member of their cluster. 

Eva turns toward the phone, which isn’t ringing at all, picks it up and locks their eyes on Isak. Probably so it doesn’t look like they’re talking to someone invisible. 

“I’m going to start work now,” they say, looking at him fondly. “I’ll see you later?” 

“Yeah, you will.” And then he’s standing outside of his school, so he scans his key and goes inside, ready for the day, having met someone he feels will be a new friend. 

* * *

Isak sees Eskild sitting in a bar on Friday night. He’s just sitting there, slamming back a shot of something neon blue with a couple of his friends. He smiles at Isak and excuses himself, shouting above the voices that he’s going to the bathroom. 

Isak is out with his friend, Magnus, who screams about the football game playing on the TV in the corner, completely immersed in this game that Isak knows his team will lose. They always do, anyway. 

Isak breaks off from his friends to meet Eskild in the middle. His face is drawn, somber, and even a little sullen, and he sighs when Isak meets his eyes. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says.

“I live up the street,” Isak says flatly. 

“Oh, yes, right. Anyway, there’s something we need to discuss.” 

“Okay…” 

“In private. It’s kinda a big secret, alright?” 

Isak furrows his brow, confused as fuck, but follows Eskild into the men’s room. It’s a small bar, so its bathroom is just one toilet and one sink with no stalls. Apparently, Eskild decides it’s safe enough, because he turns to Isak after locking the door. 

“There are things I have to tell you and I can only tell you.” 

“Why only me?” 

“You’re the only one of your cluster that I’ve met in person. That’s how we connect with other sensates outside of our cluster. If you look into another sensate’s eyes, you connect. They can visit you at any time.”

“Any time? Like my cluster does?”

“Yes...but your cluster is pretty much designed to want to keep you safe. If not for your benefit, then their own, because they will feel your death as if they were dying, too. The people outside of it? It’s different for them. Like, you can’t use my abilities at will despite being connected, right? Like I speak Polish, because I’m from Poland, but you can’t speak it, because we aren’t in a cluster together.” 

“Right. Got it.” Isak thinks he does at least. 

The relationship between Isak and his cluster is more intimate, more defined, than his connection to Eskild, despite him being their father, because he’s from another cluster entirely. Isak has no attachment to Eskild's abilities or thoughts, only his location and feelings. 

“Okay, so you need to know something. You can and should tell the rest of your cluster...Perhaps you could even go get them? Invite them to listen?” 

“Oh,” Isak says in surprise. “I can have more than one visiting at a time?” 

_“Pierdolić”_ Eskild curses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Please just try.” 

Isak nods his head as Eskild locks the door and thinks about seeing any of his cluster. When he opens his eyes, he’s in a hospital room standing across from Jonas as he types on a computer. When he reaches out for him, Jonas turns and grins. 

“Isak! Hello.” 

“I need you to come with me.” 

Jonas stands up, always so cool, and follows him back to the bathroom. 

“I have to try and get the others, too,” Isak says. “Have you ever visited with more than one of us?” 

“Not on purpose, no. I suppose you should just think about it and it’ll happen. That’s how this seems to work.” 

Isak sighs a little, but he’s glad Jonas is here to help him. Glad for his steady voice and his calm directions. 

He reaches out for Noora, who he finds sitting at her vanity in her bedroom poking at the still yellow bruises on her ribs. He feels so awfully for her, for her situation, but he doesn’t want to waste any time. 

“Can you visit me? Eskild wants to talk.” 

“The father of the cluster?” Noora asks, lowering her shirt. “I have some questions for him!” 

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer them...just...come on.” 

Isak tries and gathers everyone he can. Mahdi, still in bed, almost doesn’t wake up, but Isak shakes him perhaps a little _too_ energetically, and he rises. Yousef is asleep, too, which Isak doesn’t get until he remembers time zones exist. Mahdi and Yousef are asleep because it’s early in the morning on a Saturday for them, where it’s late Friday night for him. Strange, but cool nonetheless. 

Mikael’s asleep and, frankly, Isak doesn’t care to wake him. More likely than not, he’d just get upset and banish him again, so he lets him sleep. Eva is still awake, thankfully, and they come with no argument or discussion at all. Even’s awake when Isak visits him, sitting half-naked in a bedroom with a balcony, looking shamelessly gorgeous in the dim light from the outside. There’s a croissant, half eaten, on a plate and a cup of coffee on the table beside him as rain pours down outside his window. 

“Hello, mon ami,” Even says slowly. “How is Seattle tonight? As fatuous as the rest of the US I imagine?” 

“I need you to come with me. There’s a situation.” 

Even’s up and on defense instantly, even in just his underwear, and he looks badass and effortless and beautiful. He joins the rest of them in the bathroom and Isak tries not to stare. He notices healed scars on his chest that are symmetrical and curved, wonders what they’re from, looks away to hide his curiosity. 

“Are we all here?” 

“Yeah,” Isak says, “except Mikael...but he’s...having a difficult time adjusting, so he needs space.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Eva says flatly. “He told me I was a demon.” 

“He can’t hear you,” Isak says. “You’re in my head.” 

“This sucks. Why do you get to connect with Eskild?” 

“Because he was local.” Probably. 

Isak, in fact, has no idea why Eskild chose him. Poland is a lot closer to France or even Russia than Seattle is. 

“Anyway,” Eskild says, “hello, yes, I am your father. Don’t make the Star Wars joke because Isak already did.” 

No one looks like they were going to or even that they thought he was clever, so Isak frowns. Sighs a little dramatically. 

“You should have realized by now that this thing is kinda a big deal. Being sensate is incredibly rewarding and the sex is, like, the best ever, but they are some...downfalls. Some cons to the pros, if you will.” 

“And they are?” Yousef asks, already looking concerned. 

“If you make eye contact with another sensate outside of your cluster, they can reach you at all times. No matter what. They can see and hear and feel the things you do, even if you don’t want them to. This is really dangerous because...because there’s someone hunting us.” 

“What?” Even asks. “Hunting?” 

“Yes...He’s called the Cannibal...because he ate his own cluster, felt their deaths as if they were his own, survived and even thrived on it...and now he’s looking for fresh meat.” 

No one in Isak’s cluster says a word. Even Isak, who always has something to say, says nothing. 

He’d been naive to think being a sensate would be all sunshine and rainbows, though. Nothing ever works out like that. A price has to be paid in life for the good and the miraculous. 

“I don’t even know what he looks like, to be honest, or what his name is, but he’ll come for all of you if he finds out you exist.” 

“Is there any way to stop him?” Noora asks and, despite her being in his head, Eskild answers. 

Perhaps Noora is speaking as him in a way. Cool. 

“None. Once he has your scent, he won’t stop until you’re all dead. Everyone you’re connected to, he’ll hunt them down, too...and make you watch as he tortures them.” 

“So he’s just committing genocide? For what end?” Mahdi asks. 

“Yeah, what does he get out of it?” Eva repeats.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Eskild sighs. “Gratification? He’s a diagnosed psychopath, so there’s no way for me to know. I don’t even want to get inside his head.” 

“Who gives a shit what he gets out of it?” Even snaps, shaking his head furiously. “What do we do to avoid him?” 

“Keep a low profile and whatever you do, don’t let anyone look at your brain. A simple CAT scan or MRI will expose the entire cluster. During your birth, your brains changed. Doctors are basically trained to snitch on you.” 

“What?” Jonas asks, looking disgusted. “I wasn’t—I would never...” 

“One of us is a doctor,” Isak says to Eskild, speaking when Jonas cannot. “He wasn’t trained like that.” 

“They teach it to you as _Analog’s Syndrome,_ a fatal brain disorder that requires an operation that can only be done by trained surgeons. They instill that image of the scans of it into you during medical school so you put that word, _Analog,_ in your paperwork. The computer labels it, tags it, and sends it, along with the patient information, to _BPO_ who sends out their team. The Cannibal works for them...or maybe they work for him. I don’t know; I’m not entirely sure.” 

_“Analog’s Syndrome,”_ Jonas says softly, looking so upset that Isak can’t stand it. “I remember.” 

Isak gets the feeling Jonas knows the syndrome more than he’s saying, but he doesn’t mention it. Has too many otherwise occupying thoughts.

“So we hide from him.” Even nods his head, being the strong one of their group in a time of weakness. 

“We can do it.” Eva’s voice is equally as firm and sure. 

“Others have. I have, too...but there’s another thing. If you meet one one of us, don’t trust them. _BPO_ has people they hired, other sensates, that hunt for us, too. They’re on _BPO_ ’s payroll and will throw you right into the Cannibal’s hands.” 

“So we’re fucked?” Isak asks flatly. 

“Basically,” Noora snorts. “Sounds impossible to evade forever unless we all move to a country that only allows _sapiens_ or something.” 

“There should be a place like that,” Mahdi agrees. “A safe space for _sensoriums.”_

“No,” Eskild says, bringing them back to the matter at hand. “I’ve done it. My mother, she did it, and so did her father. Keep a low profile, don’t get brain scanned, don’t meet eyes with the Cannibal. All easy stuff.” 

Isak gets the feeling Eskild's withholding something. Some little bit of truth that would make his mother's mother's survival less impressive. 

“How do we know who the Cannibal is?” Even says, a little irritated. “You said you don’t know what he looks like.” 

“I could guess for you, if you want.” Eskild shrugs. “Older guy, late 30s or 40s, probably white...with a superiority complex.” 

“That’s like every white guy ever!” Noora says in exasperation. 

Isak, physically unable to bear anymore or help himself, laughs. He laughs so hard tears spring to his eyes. It’s funny, sure, but he’s cracking up. 

Everyone looks at him like he’s losing it and maybe he is. Maybe he did a long, long time ago. 

“Inside my cluster is a scientist. She used to work for a company that produced drugs, so she’s using her knowledge to recreate a drug that temporarily inhibits the _psycellium,_ or the psychic nervous system that connects us all, but it’s still in progress. _BPO_ has the original prescription patented, so the recipe is secret. Once it’s completed, it should make it as though you’re a _sapien,_ even if for a short time.”

“Okay,” Mahdi says reassuringly even though he still seems confused. “Got it.” 

“Do you need any help?” Jonas asks suddenly, looking desperate. “I can help.” 

“The doctor of the cluster wants to know if your guy needs help.” 

“I think she’s okay. Another member of my cluster is a neurologist, so they’re working on it together. Thanks, though.” 

Jonas deflates a little, rests heavily against the sink. Isak wants to comfort him, wants to reach out for him, but he can feel Even’s eyes on him, so he doesn’t. 

“I have to go,” Eskild says. “We’ve been in the bathroom too long. My friends are gonna think we’re having sex.” 

Isak laughs again, but apparently it’s still not the right time, because no one else does. Killjoys. 

“Bye, I guess,” Isak says, thinking of how he now needs to go home to think this entire thing over. 

“See you soon.” And then Eskild opens the bathroom door and leaves, performing a little spin as he goes. 

Isak smiles a little despite all the bad news they’ve just heard and turns to his cluster. He sees the same look across all of their faces: horror. Even Even, whose face is usually full of sarcastic amusement, looks horrified. 

“What are we going to do?” Eva asks, standing close to Noora. “How do we avoid someone we’ve never met before? How do we avoid connecting with other sensates when we don’t know if the people around us are _sapien_ or _sensorium?”_

“This is so complicated,” Noora says, shaking her head. “I don’t even know where to begin.” 

“I do,” says a small voice behind all of them. 

Isak turns, already frowning, and there stands Mikael. The same Mikael who thinks that they’re all abominations. 

“We hide in plain sight.”

* * *

Mikael, as it seems, has had a massive change of heart. Incredible, wowing, mind blowing. 

Isak doesn’t trust him or it for a goddamn second. 

Instead, he returns to his friends in the bar and they laugh and cheer and drink until Isak’s a little wobbly on his feet and he calls himself to Uber to get home. Magnus lives in the building at the end of the block, so Isak walks him there as they wait for his car. 

“I’m glad you broke up with Emma,” Magnus says drunkenly. “You seemed so unhappy.” 

“I was. She never let me come out with you,” Isak says and then laughs. “How depressing life was when I didn’t have to carry your ass back to your apartment.” 

“You aren’t carrying me.” 

“No? So if I dropped your arm, you wouldn’t fall?” Isak admonishes, smirking. “Let’s test that theory.” 

Isak goes to release him, but he resists, so Isak laughs and playfully jostles him like he’s going to fall. 

“Fine,” Magnus says drunkenly. “You are carrying me.” 

Isak grins and leads him up the stairs to the elevator in his apartment building. He presses the button and Magnus leans against the wall to look at him. 

“Same time next week?” He asks as the elevator opens and he slips inside. 

“You got it, man.” 

And then the doors slip shut between them, so Isak turns, exits the building, and waits underneath the awning for his car, because a heavy rain has started to fall and he doesn’t want to get soaked. 

While he stands there, chilled by the still chilly Spring breeze, he opens Instagram and starts to look for his cluster. Casually, of course. 

Sue him for being curious. 

He finds Noora first, because she’s very active on hers, and it’s a mishmash of politics, culture, school, and escape. She looks beautiful in her pictures and intelligent in her captions. He thinks about following her, but doesn’t, because it would be weird for an American man who isn’t supposed to understand Russian to suddenly follow an account that’s entirely Russian. Then he looks up Jonas, who is equally as political, but less culture. Less traditional dishes and formal holidays than Noora and more surfing and beach and sun. 

Isak opens up a picture of him basking in the sun in tiny blue swimming shorts and flip-flops. He’s squinting and smiling so broadly that Isak finds himself smiling back. He looks so innocent and so beautiful and Isak has never felt this before. Not like this, not for a boy. 

He searches for Eva and finds their Insta is private, so he can only see their picture and bio. 

25, they/them, barista, student

black lives matter

defund the police

And that’s it. They look cute as hell in the one picture Isak can see, though. 

Mahdi is next and his is full of pictures of the cafe he owns, of Amsterdam, of him and his family and friends, and, of course, of weed. It’s legal here in Seattle, too, but Amsterdam is famous for their weed cafes, so of course he has to advertise. 

Yousef has millions of followers and Isak remembers he’s famous. He’s a fucking musician, well known and world renowned, and Isak is kind of weirded out. He’s more connected to Yousef than any of his fans and he hadn’t known? Ugh. The complicated inner workings of the _psycellium_ are still a mystery to Isak. 

Even seemingly doesn’t have one—probably has something to do with his job—and Mikael’s is also private, but Isak can imagine the sorts of things he probably posts. His profile picture is of him and his best friend, Adam. Somehow, Isak knows his name. Very, very strange. 

Then his car arrives and he gets in, entirely prepared to go home, eat leftover spaghetti, and go the fuck to bed. 

When he gets there, though, plans change. 

Even is waiting in his living room, still in just his underwear, strewn beautifully across the couch like he’d been there for hours. He looks perfectly at home, like he belongs on Isak’s edgy couch that Emma picked out. The scars on his chest stand out under the dim lighting like tattoos. 

“Bonjour, mon ami,” Even says exquisitely. “How was your night?” 

“You mean the rest of it after we found out we’re at serious risk of being cannibalized?” Isak smirks. “It was great.” 

And it really was. Isak and Magnus didn’t get to hang out much with Emma around, because she didn’t like him. Didn’t like how he’s sometimes a little rough around the edges and also didn’t like that he wouldn’t put up with her whining. 

“I’m glad. I have a question for you.” He stands, tall and lean and half-naked in Isak’s apartment, just feet from his bedroom. 

He reaches out as he walks past him, his fingers brushing Isak’s chin and neck and cheek, as he heads for the kitchen. Isak follows him, feeling incredibly vulnerable. 

“Do you trust Mikael?” 

“Not for a second. Who has such an extreme change of heart so quickly? It doesn’t make sense.” 

“His idea, though…” 

“Hiding in plain sight is our only option, yeah, I agree.” 

“What do you have to eat here?” He rifles through Isak’s cabinets, which are pretty bare. Then the fridge, which is almost entirely empty, and then he sighs, leans dramatically against the counter. 

“Do you think he’s setting us up?” Isak asks, embarrassed as the emptiness of his kitchen. 

Emma did the shopping and he hasn’t had the time to do it yet. Tomorrow’s Saturday, though, and he has a date with the _QFC_ on Mercer St. 

“I think there’s some ulterior motive involved, yeah...I just haven’t worked it out yet.” 

Isak sighs, soft and low, because he’s a little tipsy still and he’s tired and he’s hungry. He has no food other than last night’s pathetic spaghetti, so he decides just to shower and go to bed. Tomorrow, he’ll fill up his fridge and finish grading that essay he assigned last week. 

The kids have been asking about it, but he hasn’t had the energy to grade it. Tomorrow, he will. 

“Can I ask you another question?” That annoying and infuriating smirk is back. 

“Sure.” Hesitant. Isak is hesitant, because of that look. 

Beautiful to be sure, but dangerous, too. Isak waits as Even steps forward, taller than he is and fitter. Elegant, despite being almost entirely naked. 

“Did you,” he leans in close, breathing the same air as Isak, “kiss Jonas?” 

Isak’s jaw drops open, but Even doesn’t step back. Instead, he comes even closer until he’s surrounding Isak. He’s in his space the way no one should ever be, but it feels right. Feels powerful. Enlightening. Shocking. 

Isak swallows hard, breath shaking, staring up into Even’s striking blue eyes as he whispers, “Yes.” 

“Did you like it?” 

“Yes.” 

Even’s hand winds its way around Isak’s jaw and behind his ear, holding him gently and firmly. It feels so good that Isak leans up a little. Wants, even though he also wants Jonas. 

It’s very strange, to be torn between his own feelings. It’s less strange that they’re men, which is strange in itself, because Isak thought he was straight. Now he’s gay. Or bi or pan or something. He’ll figure it out soon. 

“What if I kissed you?” Even asks, his accent sounding incredible and hushed. “What would you do? Would you like it?” 

Isak hesitates to answer, because the answer is yes. He would. He’d kiss him back. He’d hold him tight and never let go. 

“Hmm?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then should I?” He’s inches from Isak’s mouth, from the relief of pressing their lips together, and Isak can’t stand the tension any longer. 

“Yes.” And so he does. 

It’s nothing and everything all at once. Like fire and flame and lightning. His hands are firm on his jaw, his hip, his waist. His mouth is sharp and soft and relentless. 

He kisses Isak in a way no one has ever kissed him before. Touches him like no one has before. 

Isak doesn’t think about the implications of this, of kissing Even after recently kissing Jonas, and he doesn’t care. Not in this moment and certainly not in the next. Not when Even backs him up against the counter in Isak’s tiny apartment and presses his tongue against Isak’s. 

Isak slips a little in his stance, reaches out for Even’s arm to steady himself, so Even lifts him, rests his body on the counter top to kiss him better. Harder. Firmer. 

His hand grips Isak’s thigh as his mouth traces a path of fire down his neck and across his jaw. It feels so impossibly good that Isak makes a small, soft sound. Really, it’s barely a sigh, but it’s enough. 

“Is that all it takes?” Even whispers, so close. “Some kissing?” 

It never has before. With Emma, there had been lots of work for him to bring himself up for the task. This...this is effortless. Isak is as turned on as he’s ever been. Maybe Isak is totally gay. 

The idea is not so unsettling in the scheme of things. He is, after all, any different species of human entirely, so gay is not the most upsetting thing he has realized about himself as of late. 

“There’s something you should know,” Even whispers, fingers just barely touching Isak’s cheek, “but I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it yet.” 

“We’re in a cluster together. No more secrets.” 

Even grins and kisses him again, grip on his neck firm and sexy and unforgiving. Isak wraps his legs around him, pulling him in close. Having Even so close, being able to touch his bare skin, to have him so near and so far away at once, is intoxicating. 

“It’s not a secret,” Even says, foreheads pressed together. “I'm not hiding it. I just think that you wouldn’t come to this conclusion on your own.” 

“Are you calling me unobservant?”

“Quite,” Even says, still grinning wickedly. “I’m afraid I have business to attend to now, though.” 

“Who’s on your list today?” Isak lifts his chin so his lips brush Even’s as he speaks. “Another shithead landlord?” 

“Aren’t all landlords shitheads?” Even leans back and Isak sees where he is. 

Still in that rainy bedroom with the nice balcony. Still naked. Still beautiful. 

“I’m going out for brunch with my mother. She is traditional...a little too much so.” 

“Oh,” Isak says softly, nodding. “My mom was like that, too. Super religious.” 

“She’s not religious, not in the American sense. She’s just...old fashioned, I guess. Doesn’t like change or new ideas.” 

“Got it.” 

“I have to get dressed…” He pulls back, crossing the room to go to his closet. _“Mon dieu.”_

“I’ll see you later, then?” Isak asks, smiling. 

“You will.” He rifles through the clothes. “Oh, and feel free to keep kissing Jonas. I don’t mind sharing. I’d just make sure he doesn’t either.” 

And the connection breaks, leaving Isak half-hard in his pants, alone in his kitchen with a conversation to have and some things to think about. 


	2. shallow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: sexual content, (embarrassing) YA lit references
> 
> writing this brings me some peace, actually, which is hard to come by nowadays. hope you enjoy.

School is quickening back up after Easter break when Noora tells Isak she’s booking a plane ticket. In order to apply for asylum, she has to come to the US first with a legal passport, which took some time for her to get, and then actually apply in person with an I-589 form. 

“I just don’t know where to fly to,” she explains, sitting on her bed in her pajamas as her roommates scream and shout in the kitchen. 

Her belongings, meager as they now are, are packed away in two large suitcases and a backpack, and she’s leaving whatever doesn’t fit. Her roommates, as usual, are arguing, this time about food gone missing from the fridge, so she ignores them. 

“Is money an issue?” Isak asks. “If it isn’t, you could fly into Seattle.” 

Noora smiles ruefully, raises her eyebrows, and says, “I’m gay, Isak,” with a little laugh. 

Isak laughs, too, and says, unsurely, outloud for the first time, “Me, too.” 

Noora grins and rolls her eyes, says, “Money isn’t a worry. My mother and father are paying for my trip and they’re both therapists; They can afford it.” 

Isak can feel how bad Noora’s relationship with her parents is. Can feel it’s worn and exhausting and ragged, a lot like Isak’s own. Can feel that she gets some modicum of joy out of spending a lump sum of their money. 

“So come to Seattle. You can stay with me while you get on your feet here.” 

“I don’t want to impose.” 

“Impose? Noora, you and seven other people are in my head any and all of the time. Every time you listen to music, I hear it. Every time you’re upset, I feel it. Impose is a word that means nothing to me anymore, so please, come here...if you want.” 

He doesn’t want to push her into any decisions. Seattle, like most of the US, is dangerous in its own way, but she’d have somewhere to stay, somewhere to go. Isak will even clean out the room Emma used for storage so Noora can have a room of her own. 

As Noora’s roommates scream about missing desserts, Isak shrugs, smiles. 

“I promise not to eat your last slice of  _ malenka. _ ”

She laughs and nods, says, “Alright. Let’s fucking do it.” 

So Isak sits down beside her and helps her pick a flight. There’s only a few from Russia to Seattle and they all involve crazy layovers and stuff, so they pick the least chaotic, even if it’s the more expensive option, for two weeks later. 

Isak can feel that Noora gets some degree of satisfaction from the knowledge that it’s going to cost a lot, so he says nothing and revels in it with her. Could find the backstory if he wanted to, but doesn’t, because he’d rather Noora tell him when she feels like it. 

“So you’ll fly from from Khimkie to JFK in New York and then from JFK to Seattle-Tacoma, where I’ll pick you up.” 

“That’s great,” she says. “I can’t fucking wait to get out of here.” 

-

Isak spends Easter break on holiday with Even in New Caledonia, which is a dozen or so islands off the coast of Australia. They speak French there, and some Japanese, so Even is at home to some degree there. Apparently, he speaks Japanese, too, which is kind of amazing. 

“How many languages do you speak?” Isak asks, sitting on a small boat beside Even as he drives it across the beautifully clear water. “I mean, how many did you learn before our rebirth?”

“I’m French, so I speak French, obviously, and I learned English and German in school. I taught myself a lot of Japanese and then moved there where I cemented the knowledge at 21. Portuguese, a little more difficult, but I manage.” 

“That’s a lot.” 

“Maybe for _sapiens,_ _mon americain, mais pas pour nous._ We can speak a shit ton of languages.” 

“How many, you think?” 

“I believe we’re in the double digits. Perhaps 10 or 11?” 

“That’s wild.” 

Even nods and slows the boat down to a stop some ways off the coast. The view is incredible, all rocky cliffs and soft sandy beaches. Isak can’t believe a place so beautiful hasn’t been destroyed yet, not in this world, not with everything that has happened. Hasn't been crushed under the weight of coimate change and capitalistic greed. 

“The french love vacations,” Even says, speaking into the wind so his voice is as soft as the sand. “I make sure to take them very regularly.” 

“Americans are not that way at all. In the US, it’s sort of...frowned upon to take your vacation days that the company _gives_ you...which is sort of illegal, but...you know.” 

“How sad an existence that is,” Even says, sounding somber and sort of confused.  _ “Sans vacances? _ Terrible.” 

_ “Je sais,”  _ Isak answers. “Being a teacher provides some, but little relief. In the summer, I sometimes work a part time job to add to what little savings I have.”

_ “Les Etats-Unis _ sucks.” 

“It does.” 

“Well,  _ mon ami,” _ Even says, reaching for his scuba diving gear, “I will see you later?” 

Isak nods, smiling softly, awaiting perhaps a kiss, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Even slips water socks and flippers onto his feet as the connection fizzles. 

Isak tries not to let the disappointment get to him. 

But it does. 

* * *

Jonas finds Isak out with Magnus on a Friday night in early May. They’re sitting at a bar, stuffing fries and burgers down their throats, laughing their heads off. Magnus is drunk, or at least getting there, and Isak’s on his third beer, and no one is paying a wink of attention to them. 

It’s great. Isak is so buzzed he feels like he’s flying, forgetting his anxiety over boys and being gay and an unidentifiable man-eater who could be in the bar with him and he'd never know. He’s too happy for all that, too busy enjoying a night out with his best friend to care. 

Magnus, who will do most things sober and absolutely _anything_ drunk, picks a song on the old jukebox in the corner, disrupting everyone else’s night, and drags Isak out to a clear spot to dance. Despite being awkward and uncomfortable, it’s funny as all hell. 

Magnus does some sort of weird twerking motion with his pelvis as the song picks up—which he recognizes as a Britney Spears song—and then he does a pirouette. He sings the words at top fucking volume, being completely inconsiderate of everyone else in the bar, and holds Isak’s hands to force him to follow. 

Isak laughs so hard he tears up, his hands gripped tightly in Magnus’ as they do a spin and then another and another. The colors of the bar melt together, filled up with relief and joy and pure happiness. Then Magnus drops his hands, belting out the next line with his hands outstretched in the air, still sort of thrusting his pelvis. 

_“Everybody let go / we can make a dance floor / just like a circus!”_ And then he drops and does a full split, tearing his jeans straight down his leg from his groin. 

Isak can’t help it, is so high on happiness, that he doubles over, laughing so hard it hurts. Magnus groans in pain, probably from the split he’s still in, and then flops over like a dead fish, paralyzed in drunken pain. 

Isak’s cheeks hurt as he falls to his knees, still laughing, completely unable to stop. 

Obviously, once Isak calms down and Magnus recovers, they have to go. Magnus’ entire ass is out, his pants are only on by the button at the waist done up, and the leg of his jeans flaps wildly in the cool breeze outside as he walks Magnus home. 

It’s still funny, so funny that Isak takes a picture to remember. When he presses the button to take it, he sees Jonas’ reflection on the screen behind him. He looks beautiful and amused. Sun-kissed and alive. 

“Hey,” Isak says softly, smiling as he turns to look at him. “How are you?” 

He hasn’t seen Jonas since before he kissed Even. Fuck fuck fuck. What is he supposed to do? These people are in his head. They know what he does, what he did, and what he’s going to do. 

Isak looks over at Magnus, at his drunken gate, and wishes, not for the first time, for the complete disconnect and simplicity of being a _sapien._

Isak wouldn’t go back even if he could, back to his lonely existence, but Magnus’ emotions and thoughts are his alone, and that’s something Isak can envy. 

“I’m good. Coming home from work.” When Isak visits, he can feel the warmth, the dust, the sunlight. 

In Perth, it’s only a little after 4 in the afternoon. For Isak and Magnus, it’s 1 in the morning. 

“You’re obviously good, too. I felt your joy. It made my boring day a lot better.” 

“Magnus split his pants while dancing to a Britney Spears song in a biker bar,” Isak says in explanation. “It was hilarious.” 

“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Magnus asks, too drunk for coherence. “Me?” 

“A ghost!” Isak says with waving fingers. “Boo!” 

Magnus jumps a little, looking spooked, but keeps walking. He spares a glance or two over his shoulder at Isak, looking mildly terrified as he and Jonas laugh. 

“You care for him?” 

“He’s my best friend. I’ve known him forever.” 

Jonas smiles, then, and reaches for Isak’s hand. His fingers are as warm as the Australian sunlight and Isak knows he has to say something. 

“I kissed Even.” 

“Oh, I know,” Jonas says pleasantly. “I spoke with him about it.” 

“Oh?” 

“I don’t mind...if you don’t.” For the first time, his sure look wavers. 

He looks like he’s nervous, awaiting Isak’s next sentence, but he doesn’t have one. Jonas doesn’t mind? What does that mean? 

“What I mean is,” Jonas says again, “we’re all kissing a bunch of thoughts, basically, so what can it hurt if you kiss Even and then kiss me? Or if I kiss you and then Even kisses me?” 

“You’ve been kissing Even?” The thought sends a bolt of lightning through him. 

Jonas and Even, best of both worlds. Together. Isak and Even and Jonas. Unthinkable. 

“Once before.” 

“I don’t mind,” Isak says surely. “I could have both?” 

“If you want it. You just have to ask.” 

Isak turns to Jonas, stopping dead in his tracks, and reaches out for him, to hold him close and tight. He feels so warm and so strong, so effortlessly beautiful, that Isak can’t resist. He lifts his head to kiss him, visiting him so Magnus doesn’t see him kissing a ghost, and feels that thing again. In his stomach, in his chest, in his brain, his skin. Like everything is synching up in preparation for something. 

Jonas’ mouth is soft and warm and inviting and Isak relishes in it. In the smell of his cologne, the taste of his mouth. Jonas holds him by his elbow with one hand and his other rests against his neck. For a moment, it’s just them and the sun, simple and together, embraced despite thousands of miles and extenuating circumstances. 

Then Isak’s wrenched from Jonas’ arms by a drunken Magnus, drawn back into the dark Seattle streets by a man wearing half a pair of pants and vomiting into the gutter.

* * *

Isak’s students, the 12th graders, take their final exam—a test on a book of their choosing that they had all year to read—and he sits at his desk. No one’s read the same book as the other, plus they’re allowed notes, so he doesn’t really have to worry about them cheating. The books did have to be at least 400 pages in length, excluding author’s notes and prefaces, but 9 months is a long time to read Little Women or whatever. Isak read the entire book the morning of his final on it during college, so they should be fine. 

“Half an hour left,” Isak announces, just to remind them. 

Theoretically, they could have longer if they needed it, but he just wants them to know what time class ends. 

When he turns back to his desk to play a game quietly on his phone, Yousef is there, standing beside him, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette to his mouth. Isak can taste the smoke when he breathes it out. Minty, like menthols. 

He looks forlorn, tired and run ragged, and Isak feels for him. The rockstar lifestyle is not an easy one, especially when you’re missing someone so entirely that it aches. 

Isak can feel his pain like its his own, a sharp ache in his chest, the threat of tears, a never ending loneliness now that they’ve left. 

Isak visits Yousef so he can say what he needs to, but Yousef’s world is a lot more chaotic than a classroom full of kids. He’s backstage at what is presumably his show. 

People rush about, shouting about mics and sound and lights, and Yousef sits in a chair in front of a vanity, having his hair styled by a woman in white overalls and a hijab. 

“Preparing for a show?” Isak asks, having to almost shout over the noise and bustle. 

Yousef nods, all too aware of the stylist’s listening ears. 

“Where are you?” Isak asks, looking around. “What country?” 

“China,” Yousef says, returning them to Isak’s classroom. “But I want to be somewhere else.” 

“Holland?” That’s where Yousef’s ex lives. 

Sana Bakkoush. She’s an activist and an architect who broke Yousef’s heart when she said long distance wasn’t something she could manage. 

Isak doesn’t even need to dig for the information, because Yousef gives it over so willingly. He wants Isak to know, wants advice on how to win back the girl of his dreams. He can’t go home, because if he breaks this contract, he’ll owe the record company millions of dollars in fees and cancelled shows, and he can’t stay, because the girl he loves is so far away. 

Isak is the wrong guy for advice, though, considering his love life is in shambles. He has a strange and unusual choice to make and he’s just recently realized he’d been repressing himself since he was 15. Who spends 10 years so utterly sure that straight relationships are just shit and that they have to just deal with it forever until the sweet release of death? 

Isak, apparently. 

He’s out of ideas, so he goes for a joke, “Fake your death and run away with her.” 

Yousef seems to consider this as Isak’s students look up at him, talking to himself like an idiot, and he sighs. Puts his phone up to his ear even though Yousef’s sitting right in front of him. Remembers he’s actually speaking Turkish, so they really can’t understand a word he’s saying. 

“That’s an idea, I guess,” Yousef says softly. “Do you think she’d run away with me?” 

“If she loves you enough, maybe. Is her family Dutch?” 

“No, no. I met her through my best friend, Elias, who used to play the drums in this band we had in high school in Istanbul. She’s his sister, you know, and he was pretty cool about it...but then my Youtube videos got popular quick and I signed a deal without consulting any lawyers. Which led to another, bigger, stricter deal with the same amount of forethought. Sana’s mom and dad wanted a fresh start, so they all moved to The Hague, but I couldn’t come, so I stayed in Istanbul, prepared to start my second tour.” 

“I’m sorry, Yousef,” Isak says, wanting badly to reach out for him, but physically unable to. 

If he started hugging empty space, his students might really think he’s gone off the deep end. Instead, he settles for resting his hand on his shoulder as people rush past him and the woman in the hijab, Azra, touches his eyebrows up with a twisty-looking tiny comb. A spoolie, maybe. (It's not a word Isak knows, but Noora seems to.)

“Life just sucks sometimes, you know?” 

“I do. How long is the tour?” 

“A year and a half.” 

18 months on the road, on planes, on continents and in countries, but never where he feels he belongs the most. It’s tragic and Isak feels his heartbreak, his pain. Wants to help him so badly, but can see no good options. 

“Distance isn't even our only issue...I started reading a lot, because I had a lot of downtime on the planes and trains and buses and stuff...and I had this epiphany. To me, human beings are a big fucking cosmic coincidence. We exist, because earth exists. We weren’t made by hands in the sky or modelled after God. We are an example of evolution, of the earth’s progression through time. God doesn’t exist, not for me, at least, because why should he? How could an all powerful, omnipotent being watch as the world did such horrible things? As people choked on nuclear fallout, as millions starved to death, as the earth burned due to corporate greed, as we _destroyed_ ourselves. How could a god who was supposed to love us just sit back and watch that? So I’m an atheist now. ” 

“And she’s muslim?” 

“She is. I think that’s what really pushed it over the edge. She has to marry a Muslim man and I...I’m just not that anymore. And that’s something neither of us are willing to compromise on.” 

Isak wishes he could comfort him somehow, could reach out and squeeze away the pain with a firm hug, but he knows nothing will heal this wound. Nothing, not even time. 

The school bell rings and Isak’s students start to gather their things, dropping their exams off at his desk. Yousef, somehow enjoying himself, takes the papers for Isak and piles them together. He passes the papers to Isak as the students file out and he rifles through, wondering what the curve will have to be on this one. 

When he lifts his head, Yousef has vanished, the connection suddenly broken like Yousef’s shattered heart. 

* * *

Isak spends the next weekend grading exams for books he’s read long, long ago. Noora helps, sitting beside him with her own pile, working through tests on books either she or Isak have read in the past. 

Arduous, yes, but less so with Noora’s help. 

Isak starts to grade Madison Vonne’s test and ultimately decides to give her a B-, for her good open-ended questions and abysmal short answers on a book called  _ Carry On _ that Isak had to buy just for her. He had to read it himself to give a thorough exam and, as young adult lit goes, it was successful enough. Cute in most ways, strange in others. Though maybe it’s just strange, because Isak is almost 26 years old and the characters are just about 18. 

“Teenagers are strange,” Noora says softly, red pen in hand. “Do they all rationalize like Gale does in Mockingjay?” 

“In what sense?” 

“Marcus writes, ‘I sympathize with Gale during the collapse of the base in District 2. I would have done the same, except I wouldn’t have left the exits open for the survivors. The people in there were allied with the Capital and they all deserved worse for allowing the senseless slaughter of their own kids. I would have sealed all the exits and called The Nut a loss. I would've felt gratified at knowing more traitors died than lived and I wouldn't have allowed anyone to alter my decisions’ I mean, okay, but aren’t you slaughtering even more with a thought process like that? All those people suffocating? Almost as bad as the Games itself.” 

“Teenagers think differently than us...or maybe it’s just American teenagers that do.” 

“That’s probably it.” Noora grins and so does Isak. “Americans are weird.”

True. Americans are weird and idiotic and dangerous. Also passionate, ill-informed, ignorant, and, sometimes, beautiful. 

“Ready for your flight?” Isak asks, crossing out a wildly incorrect answer on an exam about  _ The Book Thief.  _

“Absolutely. I’m leaving behind all this shit and looking forward to a brighter future.” 

“I’m glad and I hope you can find that here.” 

“Can I ask you something?” She pauses to look at him. “It’s kind of personal.” 

“What’s personal to me is accessible to you, so go ahead.” 

Isak feels this sort of kinship with Noora, like a siblinghood. She feels like a sister to him, someone he’s always known and occasionally fought with, someone who aged with him through the trials and tribulations of their existences. It’s so nice to feel a connection, one not based on want and need or privilege and greed. 

“Are you and Even…?” 

“I don’t know,” He says softly, setting his pen down. “I have to talk to them, see how they feel.” 

“Them?”

“I sorta kissed Jonas, too,” Isak admits feebly with a sigh. “I’m all kinds of confused.” 

“You’ve only dated women before, right?”

Isak nods, sitting back to take a sip of his tea. Despite being May, Isak still enjoys hot tea even during the warmer months. Perhaps that is the French influence, considering the French drink hot coffee all summer long, or just nothing. 

It’s quite hard for Isak to separate the somethings from the nothings right now. 

“I see.” 

“I think I’m gay. At least, this thing I feel with Even and with Jonas...I’ve never felt anything like that with a girl before. It’s just...this thing...between me and Even and Jonas…” 

“You know,” Noora says softly, “that’s okay, if it’s okay with them. Sometimes, you can have both...but you have to be willing to talk with them.” 

“I know...but it’s so strange. So unfamiliar. I’ve never done anything like that before and it scares me.”

“New things usually do,” Noora agrees. “I’m terrified of what taking asylum in The States will bring. Your president is not known for his accepting politics.” 

Isak is well aware. He voted against him in 2016, because of his far-right politics and blatant racism. He’s also a sexist, xenophobic, chauvanistic pig, but that’s implied. 

“If there are enough people like him to vote him in, well, your country isn’t that different from mine...but I can’t stay here any longer. Can’t put up with the fear and the hatred and the homophobia.” 

“Homophobia isn’t usually so outright here,” Isak says, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. “It’s usually passive aggressive. They’ll be nice to your face and then call you a homo behind your back.” 

“Nuanced homophobia?” Noora snorts. “Great. It’s better than getting kicked in the ribs anyway.” 

“I read this report that said here in the US we have a happiness rating in 18th place, whereas Russia is at, like, 59. So at least you have a chance to see what a level 18 happiness is.” Isak doesn't even bother to roll his eyes. 

“Do you _feel_ level 18 happy?” She’s grinning. 

“Of course! My friend Noora is coming to see me; how else would I feel?” 

She laughs and then says, _“Only_ an 18?” 

“Well, we both have to live there, so that brings the score down some.” 

And then they both laugh. It feels so nice to sit here with Noora, to talk and not have to worry about anything. Isak wonders if this is the first relationship with a woman he’s ever had before that has nothing to do with greed or money or power. This friendship he has with Noora is something delightful and fun and pure, a lot similar to his relationship with Magnus, though the two are completely different. 

The thought of Magnus meeting Noora, of him being so brash and filterless and blatantly American, of her being so gentle and reserved and Russian, sends another round of laughter through him. 

* * *

Isak spends his Sunday clearing out the spare bedroom in his apartment. He used to rent it out to make rent in this expensive ass city, but then he met Emma and she moved in and filled it with junk and then she moved out and left it all behind. 

He sends her a text, telling her if she wants any of it to come by and pick it up or let him know, and starts organizing. He finds random, weird shit like a computer desk and an old desktop setup, a Crock-Pot, dusty curtains, even a pretty bright pink dress wrapped up in a David’s Bridal bag that must’ve been from when she was a bridesmaid at a wedding some time ago. He keeps anything that seems important to him and sorts the rest into a different pile. 

At around 2:30, Emma shows up. She doesn’t knock, but enters awkwardly, looking fine and clean and as pretty as always. Like a fresh rose, Even had said so long ago. Very fitting for her. 

She greets him with a “Hey,” and then looks around like the place is unfamiliar to her. And it is, because Isak’s changed up a lot of things since she moved out. A new rug beneath the couch, new pillows that are actually soft, a throw blanket on the couch that Eva helped him pick out. They’re incredible with home decor, so really the new style is all thanks to them. 

“I started to sort this stuff out,” Isak says, wiping sweat off his forehead. “I found a bunch of rolls of wallpaper, if you want them.” 

“Oh, yeah, cool.” 

“Come on. Did you drive?” Emma owns a simple Kia Optima that she inherited from her grandmother when she died last year. 

“Yeah.” 

“Good. Let’s get sorting.”

* * *

Emma tosses the pretty pink dress in the trash and keeps the Crock-Pot. Isak gets the computer desk (maybe Noora could use it?) and tosses the desktop. Overall, it’s a win. 

When everything is brought down to Emma’s car, she turns to Isak, hair whipping in the wind, and smiles slightly. 

“Thanks, Isak,” she says. 

“No problem.” He turns to go, but she grabs his hand, turns him back around, and kisses him. 

Isak feels nothing when he kisses her, nothing at all, so he steps back out of her reach, looking and feeling sad and lost and used. 

“What was that for?” He asks dryly. 

“I missed you. I think we should give it another go.” 

Alarm bells. Red flashing lights. Sirens screaming. Isak starts to sweat and blurts out the first thing on his mind. 

“I’m gay!” He says sharply, accidentally, and then quieter: “I’m gay.” 

“You’re gay.” It’s not a question, but it feels like one. 

It also feels a lot like she’s making fun of him, which isn’t fair. Her eyebrows are drawn together and pulled high on her forehead and the corners of her mouth are pinched. 

“You dated me for 2 years, Isak, and now you’re _gay?”_

“Yes. Well, I was always gay, I think.” He’s so afraid suddenly that she’s going to strike out at him. 

Her hands are in fists at her sides and the vein in her forehead is bulging out a little. His breaths are shaky as he tries not to run away. When he turns, Mahdi is there with a hand on his shoulder. On the other side, Eva. Behind them, the rest of their cluster, including even Mikael, gathers, backing him up. Supporting him. 

“I can’t believe this,” she’s saying, looking furious and incredulous. “I’ve had sex with you!” 

“And?" Isak says. 

"It wasn't that good for me, either," Even snaps back for him, because he's unable to. "Don't worry about it." 

“Fucking _hell,_ Isak!” She makes a disgusting noise. 

Isak’s about to apologize for the confusion, for his late coming out, but someone interrupts him. 

“Don’t apologize, dipshit!” Jonas says firmly. “It’s not your fault.” 

Emma continues raging as if him being gay was some master plot to upset her. As if they weren’t already broken up to begin with. 

“Guess we aren’t breaking up as friends?” Even asks for him, because he has nothing else to say. “Good.  _ Au revoir, connasse.”  _

Then, as if agreed upon earlier, he and his cluster turn and all walk back inside. It’s sort of badass and when the door shuts between him and Emma, he laughs in pure relief. His cluster smiles at him, laughs with him, embraces him, and it feels so good, so pure, so wholesome that Isak isn’t even upset about Emma being a secret homophobe. Isn’t even upset that Mikael is there, some distance away, judging them with his careful, hateful eyes. 

* * *

Isak’s laying in bed, half-asleep, when he rolls over and comes nose to nose with Jonas. He smiles softly, exhaustedly, and rolls his eyes. 

“Trying to scare me?” He asks. 

“Not on purpose.” 

“Okay,” Isak says, smiling. “What’re you doing?” 

“Waiting on some bloodwork.” He’s sitting in his office at his desk. “You look cute when you’re trying to sleep.” 

“Maybe,” Isak says with a laugh. “But you look cute all the time.” 

Jonas grins, all cute and shiny like the sun, and does an adorable spin in his chair. When Isak shakes his head, they’re back in his bed, faces within inches of one another. Jonas’ eyes sparkle in the darkness, like polished marbles or crystal clear stones. 

“Can I ask you something?” Isak asks, feeling the silence and the darkness around them like a heavy blanket. 

Asking him something is beginning to be an inside joke. 

“Of course.” 

“Can I have both?” 

“Thought you’d never ask,” Jonas says and then leans in to kiss him. 

They fit together like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. 

* * *

Noora finds Isak while he’s in the school library the day before her flight. For her, it’s late in the night, not quite midnight, and for Isak it’s only just a little after 1 in the afternoon. The juxtaposition of being tired and drunk and awake and sober is so strange. So strange and so bizarrely enjoyable. 

Noora’s with a colleague from work, apparently had one too many glasses of white, and is stumbling a little drunkenly through the streets of Moscow. 

“Isak!” She gasps, reaching out for him as she grins, only managing to put her phone to her ear at Isak’s insistence. “Hello!” 

“Hi, Noora,” he says back, steadying her with his arms at her shoulders. “You’ve been drinking?” 

“Quite.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Isak says, laughing. “Enjoying your last night in Moscow?” 

“Hell yeah. Ready to get the fuck out of here!” She’s being loud. Like shouting at the top of her lungs loud. 

Despite not actually being there, her voice is so loud it makes Isak cringe and hurts his ears a little. It apparently does more to Noora’s friend than it does to Isak, though. 

“You’re really leaving?” Asks Noora’s co-worker/friend, Dmitri, who teaches in the School of Business at MSU with her. “I thought you were joking.” 

“Dima, I told you I had to go. It’s not safe here for me.” 

Dima says nothing, just stares at Noora’s face with a weird look on his own. Isak watches him, trying to identify where he’s seen this look before, when the look vanishes and he sighs, smiles a little sadly. The look stays with Isak, though, because he’s seen it before, but he can’t remember where. 

“I’m going to miss you.” 

“Aw, Dima!” She says sympathetically, feeling sad at the loss of someone she considers a friend. “I’ll miss you, too.” 

Dima tosses an arm over Noora’s waist, a little low for friendly in Isak’s opinion but maybe that’s because they’re Russian, and they begin to walk away, leaving Isak standing on the sidewalk in their haste. 

When Isak turns away to consider that look on Dmitri’s face, there Mikael is, watching, waiting. Silent as a ghost. Still as a statue. An omen for something bad to come. 

And then he’s gone, too, and Isak is left alone in the library, an unread copy of Nat Geo in his hands, the tilt of Dima’s mouth still lingering in his head.

* * *

Isak waits for Noora to arrive impatiently. He’s so excited to meet her, to talk with her, to hang out with her. 

He can tell she feels the same, because when she sees him, she runs toward him and throws her arms around him like they’ve known each other forever. Isak holds her tight, laughs in pure joy and relief, as her backpack falls to the ground, forgotten in her excitement. 

When she holds Isak, he feels closer to her, impossibly close. United. One. 

“Isak!” She cries out. “I’m so glad to see you!” 

Isak feels other arms around him, embracing him, and turns to see his cluster, all relishing in their joy, in the first face to face of their cluster ever. When Isak searches, he spots Mikael far back in the crowd of people, standing warily and confusedly some distance away. 

When Isak prepares to tell the others, Mikael disappears, leaving him and the six others behind as he runs from the inevitable, the impossible, the inescapable. Isak would sigh, but he doesn't want to ruin this day. 

“I’m so happy to see you, too!” Isak says, pushing away Mikael’s residual shame. “I'm so happy you’re here.” 

When they step back, Noora looks around at their cluster, absolutely grinning. Isak notices, not for the first time, the subtleties in the way Noora and Eva look at one another. It’s so very strange to both see in third person and experience in the first, but it feels right. Noora and Eva have something between them that Isak can feel sincerity and gentleness in, something pure and good. 

“How does this asylum thing work again?” Asks Mahdi as Isak picks up Noora’s bag from the floor and they begin to walk out of the airport. 

Isak’s best friend Magnus is waiting for them, because he’s the only person Isak knows with a car. Besides Emma, of course, who took to bashing him all over Snapchat. How grown-up of her. 

“I had to come here to begin the process. Now, I fill out some paperwork, do some interviews, and then the US government gets to determine if my asylum request is 'valid' to them.” 

"Valid," Isak snorts. "As if the US has any right to say what's valid in its current state." 

When Magnus spots Noora, his eyes sort of bug out of his head a little. In shock, perhaps. He fumbles with his car keys awkwardly, jaw dropped, sort of laughing a little under his breath. 

“I’m Noora,” she says, despite having seen Magnus many times before. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Magnus,” he says back, shaking her hand with what is probably a very sweaty and damp palm. 

Isak could predict Magnus’ thoughts if he wanted, could read him like a book, but he refrains and watches the two of them interact. 

“You’re from Russia?” He asks, using that tone that means he’s fucking around. “How’d you meet Isak? Did he pick you out of a catalogue or something?” 

“Yes, he did and I was _very_ expensive,” Noora says and then, when Magnus’ jaw drops in disbelief, laughs. “I’m kidding!” 

“Wait…” Isak says, confused. “I thought you didn’t speak English?” 

“I don’t,” Noora replies, puzzled, and then gasps in shock with a grin. “But _you_ do.” 

“Holy shit.” 

“Isak,” Magnus says hesitantly, “since when do you speak Russian?” 

“Shit,” Isak and Noora say at the same time, both in English, sounding awestruck. 

How fucking sick is this shit!

* * *

Isak doesn’t tell Magnus about being _homo sensorium,_ but only because it’s not just his secret to tell. It’s all of theirs and it truly is life or death. If Isak was alone in being this way, in being sensate, he’d tell him. Magnus may be a little dumb and vulgar, but he’s Isak’s best friend. Dependable. Trustworthy. Reliable. 

Instead, they spend the night talking and laughing in a pizza place 15 minutes from the airport. Isak and Magnus eat there sometimes and the pizza is amazing. 

They get a pepperoni pie, because they put on two layers, one cooked beneath the cheese and the other on top, and they devour the entire large pizza. When Isak looks up to laugh at a terrible joke Magnus makes, there Mikael is again, sitting across the bar. He’s watching Isak with unreadable eyes and drinking from a delicate looking glass. Perhaps he’s having a martini somewhere in Mexico City. 

Isak can’t be bothered to care; He’s having too much fun with Noora and Magnus. 

But Mikael's presence is neutral now and too noticeable to go unregarded. He is not so hateful as he was in the beginning and the connection feels confused. 

Positive emotions are so consuming in this new _post-sensorium_ world that it’s easy to forget how suffocating the negatives are. Mikael feels...almost jealous, in a way, but at the very least upset. Surely the emotion is not hatred, though, so Isak supposes it’s a step up. 

Noora, despite being connected to them, doesn’t notice him, so maybe he’s only here for Isak. Only here to sit silently and toast to his future in hell. 

Maybe  _ that’s _ it. Maybe the feeling between Mikael and Isak is a  _ form _ of hatred and that’s why it feels so familiar. Maybe he hates that Isak is gay and Noora’s a lesbian. Does he then hate Even and Jonas and Eva in the same way? Does he hate himself and Mahdi for being connected to them? 

Isak can’t think about this now, because Noora can feel his emotions and he doesn’t want to ruin her first day in Seattle, so he sighs and rejoins the conversation. 

“I gotta know how you two really met,” Magnus is saying. “I mean, you’re Russian, beautiful, and super fucking smart. What could you two have in common?” 

Isak scoffs at his jab and kicks him hard in the shin under the table. Noora grins as Magnus curses profusely, and then smirks mischievously to herself. 

“We met through penpals for prisoners,” she says brightly, lying through her fucking teeth.

Isak can’t help himself; he bursts out laughing. 

“Why do you laugh?” She looks wounded. “I was in prison for being queer and I met him through a program to find imprisoned women husbands.” 

“No fucking way,” Magnus says, in awe or shock or something. “That’s terrible!” 

“I know!” She’s still smirking and Isak is still laughing. 

“What the fuck were you doing on a prison penpal site?” Magnus asks Isak, scowling. 

“He said he was very lonely after his break up with Emma.” 

Magnus’ eyes narrow and he smiles, sneaky and surprised like he’s in on a secret. 

“And that’s how I know you’re lying!” He says brightly. “Isak doesn’t miss Emma at all!” 

* * *

Isak is alone in his kitchen just after 12 later that night when Even reappears. He’s wearing a silk robe with the wrong initials embroidered into it and a pair of soft looking slippers. There’s a mimosa in his hand, even though it’s only 9am in France, and he’s grinning at Isak as he drinks from it. 

_“Bonjour, mon americain,”_ he drawls, slipping close to Isak as he does. “Love the pajamas.” 

Isak’s in boxers and a University of Washington t-shirt that has a few bleach spots near the collar. Functional pajamas, yes, but cute? Absolutely not. 

“Unlike where you are, there's no one to impress here.” 

“Ah, yes. But who should I impress here?” He spins dramatically, robe flaring out, mimosa still in hand. “I am alone, _mon ami.”_

“But you’re working, aren’t you?” 

“Also true. Hunting down another wayward  _ connard _ who got away with too much for too long.” 

“Who this time?” Isak’s mouth curls. “Another shithead landlord?”

“No. A career criminal who filed for bankruptcy just in time to avoid paying out a settlement to his employees. His company routinely broke laws and regulation and put the employees at risk. The chemicals they put in the paint they made are illegal in the EU and, somehow, he got away with it anyway, even after half his staff came down with lead poisoning.” 

“Asshole,” Isak says disgusted. 

“Yeah and the weird thing is that his company was doing well enough financially. And suddenly, when people started getting irritated, coughing, stomach pains, only  _ then _ did the company start to fail. Supposedly, at least.” 

“Strange to be doing so well and then…” He makes an explosion motion with his hands. 

It is strange. Corrupt, for sure, but in what way?

“I’m still investigating, but I know he’s up to something. That’s got to be why he’s hiding out here.”

“He’s hiding out in Biarritz?” 

“Yes and, again, I’m not entirely sure why, because it's not exactly a good place to lay low...which I don’t like. I like to have all the facts.” 

“What’s his name again?” 

“Leonard Wilton.” He even sounds disgusting. 

“Gross...He’s hiding out in a spa in a small French town?” 

“It’s very strange,” Even agrees. “I will, of course, thoroughly investigate his reasons before acting.” 

“Good,” Isak says and then he smiles. “Bring those people some justice, yeah?” 

“Of course, _mon ami._ How is Noora?”

Even crosses the room in his suite to open the balcony doors and slip outside. Isak follows him, feeling chilled in the damp warm air. It’s almost June now, but the mornings are still cool. 

Even opens a pack of cigarettes and lights one. When he inhales, Isak can taste it. Can feel the smoke in Even’s lungs. 

“Noora’s awesome. I’m glad she’s safe.” 

“Me, too. Russia is no joke.” 

“Neither is Seattle lately.” Isak thinks of the news just last week, of the man struck so hard he bled in his brain, just for being gay. 

“But at least she has you there, in person.”

“And I have her.” 

Even nods thoughtfully, still smoking, so Isak takes his mimosa and sips from it. It tastes delightful, unlike anything he’s ever had before, and reminds him vaguely of his childhood. Of the day his dad married his step-mom. 

Isak was only 14 then, but he was a troubled kid at that point. His dad was a piece of shit who left as soon as Isak’s mom got sick, so when she died, he didn’t even come to her funeral. Instead, just 6 months later, he got remarried to a 21-year old who had 2 kids herself. 

Isak went only because he had no choice. His mom was dead and his dad paid the bills, so where _could_ he go? In the US, there's no support for kids of neglectful parents except foster care, which is a mess in itself. 

In an act of defiance and hatred, he drank their celebratory champagne in the bathroom of their venue. Apparently the bottle cost $3000, so he was in deep shit, but he was too drunk to care. Was even happier when he heard how expensive it was the next day. Was less happy when his dad made him work it off by babysitting his new step-mom's dumb bratty kids. 

_“Merde,”_ Even whispers, feeling the memory himself. _“La vie est compliquée, non?”_

_“Oui,”_ Isak agrees and he finishes off the drink. 

Even smokes his cigarette and Isak stands beside him. The waves on the beach across the way crash gently on the sand as mist from the early morning laps against his skin. 

Biarritz, from here, is so beautiful. A quiet sunrise on a vacant beach. An older couple walks across the sand near the water, hand in hand. Picturesque. 

“It _is_ beautiful,” Even says softly as the salty air ruffles his hair. 

“So are you.” 

Even’s grin is a beautiful and fragile thing. 

“There’s something I must tell you,” he says, looking unsure, for once, just for a second. 

His confidence, which had seemed so effortless, wanes now. He hesitates for the first time since Isak met him. 

“Before we start up this whole...thing.” 

“What?” Isak asks, trying to calm his nerves. “You’re secretly a hitman? Because _that’s_ a deal breaker for me.” 

Even laughs a little, anxiety assuaged momentarily. Isak grabs his hand, holds it firmly, and looks him in the eyes as the sun shines behind him. The light warms his skin, even though he isn’t really there, and he knows whatever Even’s going to say, it’s serious. 

“Okay...so you know how you thought you were straight for 25 years?” Even whispers, looking away. “Well, it was never like that for me. I always knew who I was...and I was encouraged to hide it at all times by my traditionalist mother...because that is what we Næsheims do. But, even in the face of difficult things, the French persevere.  _ Vive la résistance, _ and all that; so I refused to hide myself away. Being pan wasn’t the hard part for me, though. The hard part came after.” 

Isak nods, listening very intently. 

“I transitioned, Isak. I’m trans and I don’t know if you know what that means, but  _ I _ know what it means, so...by default, so should you. Obviously.” 

Trans. Okay. Isak actually _does_ know what that means on his own; he isn’t  _ completely _ obtuse. He’d noticed the scars on Even’s chest before, but hadn’t even thought anything of it. 

“Okay,” Isak says slowly. “Good. I’d thought those scars were because someone hurt you and I was worried a little. Now I’m relieved.” 

“No one hurt me,” Even says with a little laugh and a raised eyebrow. “As if anyone could.” 

“And...I’m glad you told me. I never would’ve even thought about it, so. Not that it matters anyways.” 

“You’re okay with it?” Even asks boldly, eyes narrowing a little. “Truly?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re as much a guy as I am...maybe you’re even more so than I am, because you worked so hard for it. I was just sorta put here and given the title, you know?”

"I did work hard to get here, you're right." 

"I know,” Isak grins. “I remember.” 

Isak can feel Even’s memories as if they were his own now that he knows. Can feel his mother’s confusion, her anger, his bigotry. Can hear the sound of a name that was never really Even’s at all being used as a weapon against him. Can hear insults from strangers' mouths, whispers about him in packed school hallways. Can feel the needle in the skin of his upper thigh week after week. Th sweet relief of change. The rectangle of skin on his forearm that had been gone for so long. 

“This experience,” Even says, smoking the last of his cigarette, “is so much better than even if I could have imagined it.” 

“The sensate experience?” 

_ “Oui.”  _

Isak agrees. If before his rebirth, he’d had this same information, and the chance to think about what his life would be like, it would be so much less than this. Real life is so much better than any fantasy Isak’s straight-thinking brain could’ve thought up. 

“Well said,” is all Isak can manage to say. 

Even turns to put his cigarette butt into an ashtray and when he turns back, the vulnerability is gone from his face. Instead, his sexy snarky smirk is back and he’s leaning into Isak’s side a little. 

“What are you doing?” He asks and then they’re in Isak’s kitchen. “Eating?” 

Isak had been planning on finding something to eat, but he’d obviously been distracted. 

“I was. Do you have something else in mind?” 

“Oh, _mon amour,”_ Even’s mouth is wicked, “I have lots in mind.” 

Isak sighs a little nervously, a little relieved, and then he nods. 

“Come on then, _mon chou.”_

Of all the french endearments Isak knows (or, rather, he _indirectly_ knows), he picks cabbage. For the love of God. 

Thankfully, Even doesn’t say anything, but his smirk deepens a little. Then he turns toward Isak at the last second and is in his space. 

He smells like something delicate and expensive and his skin underneath Isak’s hands is so soft. He holds Isak firmly and looks at him with gentle eyes. The look, the trust, it does something to Isak. Breaks down something he’d built up inside of himself. 

_“T’es très beau,”_ Even whispers, speaking purposefully in French. _“T’es incroyable, Isak.”_

_ “Non,”  _ Isak replies,  _ “c’est toi.”  _

And then Even’s hands slide up his arms to his jaw and he kisses him. From the first contact, Isak’s skin is on fire. This feeling must be the psycellium, must be some sensate thing, because how could anyone give this up? How could normal people just go on after feeling this and forget? 

Isak melts under his mouth, holding on to Even’s waist as he leans him into the kitchen cabinets. The cold linoleum presses against the small of his back where his shirt doesn’t cover, but he’s burning so hot that he doesn’t notice. 

Isak can’t do anything but be consumed by the feeling. He drags his hands up Even’s body, over his stomach and his scars and his neck. It feels so good, to be touched and to touch, that Isak can’t stop. He never wants it to stop. 

“Even,” he whispers, feeling the cool French breeze from the sea on his skin as he’s brought back to Even’s world. 

Here, the balcony railing presses into his back, his leg is lifted a little, and Even is so close. So impossibly close and smelling so fucking good. 

“Should we,” Even whispers into Isak’s ear, “take this to your room?” 

“Why should we when we have such a wonderful view here?” 

Even laughs a little and then his lips are on Isak’s skin again as the sun peaks through the clouds.

So much better, so much warmer, so much softer. There’s so much gentleness in the way Even’s fingers brush his jaw, his neck, his collarbones. 

Emma’s hands had been sharp and painful, digging in and pinching. Incredible Isak had made it so long without breaking up with her. 

Even tosses Isak’s shirt to the kitchen floor and lifts him so he’s on the counter. He opens Isak’s thighs and presses in between them, his body, Isak’s body, together. He feels so impossibly good beneath Isak’s fingers that he gasps. Isak reels him in, arms holding him close as their mouths find each other. 

The bed in Even’s hotel room is soft beneath Isak’s back, despite not actually being there. Even’s there again, between Isak’s thighs, robe long gone, this beautiful look on his beautiful face. 

“Kiss me,” Isak whispers and Even’s wicked grin comes back as he leans forward and does as asked. 

Isak’s never been this hard before. When Even’s pelvis presses into Isak’s against the counter in the kitchen, he groans inadvertently. Unintentionally. 

It feels so impossibly good. Even smirks and then kisses him again, slips down onto the lower part of the bed, and touches Isak’s boxers. Just at the hem. Asking permission. 

“Do it.” 

He slips them down Isak’s legs, unhooks them from around his ankle, and then looks at Isak in the eyes. 

“Do what?” 

“Don’t play coy. You know.” 

And of course he does know. Everything Isak will ever want, Even will know. They are more connected than any number of sapiens ever will be. 

Buying Christmas presents will be incredibly easy for them all this year. And equally as terrible, because secrets are nonexistent between them. No good thing goes unpunished. 

“I do.” 

Even’s gentle fingers trace their way from the inside of Isak’s knee all the way to his groin. This feels like fire, like lava in a volcano, like a meteor falling through space. So fucking good that it burns. 

“Even,” Isak whispers, head tossed back among the expensive French pillows. “Oh, my God.” 

Even’s mouth closes over the head of Isak’s dick, all encompassing and all consuming. The feeling is a million times better than anything Isak’s had before.

His hand holds the part of Isak’s dick that isn’t in his mouth and strokes as his tongue teases him. It is so much and so hot and Isak doesn’t have words. He doesn’t have thoughts or ideas or probably even a brain anymore. 

He can do nothing, but whimper, fist his hands in Even’s hair as he kneels before him in his kitchen, as he kneels between his thighs on the bed. They are breaking laws of physics right now, the two of them, in both places at once. 

Everything is so magnified in this post-sensorium realm of existence. Every touch, every word, every thought. Isak is so surrounded that he knows he’s reaching, like, the sensorium nirvana or something. Everything is nothing and nothing is everything. 

Even’s mouth takes him in, his hair is so soft. Isak can’t. 

“Even,” Isak whispers, trying to pull back, “I’m gonna—” 

“Does it matter, _mon amour?”_ Even asks. “You aren’t really here. I’m not really there.” 

“Oh, God, you’re right.” 

“Good.” And then Even continues, his mouth warm and tight.

The feeling is so immeasurably good that Isak can’t do anything but succumb to it. He is physically drained and so he comes. 

He’s never felt like this before, never felt something so selfishly good, and he can’t do anything but whisper Even’s name and hold his wrists as he comes. 

Even lets him have a moment, obviously feeling how overwhelmed he is. 

“Isak?” He asks. “Was this your first real orgasm with someone else?” 

“‘Real’?” 

“Where you were...attracted...to the person helping you out?” 

Isak doesn’t have to think about the answer; yes. 

“How did you manage it?” Even grins. “Kind of a scientific marvel, that.” 

“You’d think.” Isak sits up, breathing still a little weird. “That was…” 

“I know,” Even says softly. “It’s so strange...but I felt it, too.” 

“You felt what I felt?...You’re right; that is strange.” 

“The others...Do you think they felt it, too?” Even asks. “This connection runs so deeply between us…” 

“Oh, my god.” Isak laughs. “They totally know.” 

Even rolls his beautiful eyes and smiles a little. Looks at Isak with fondness on his face. 

“You’re so cute,” is all he says, flopping down onto the bed beside him. “It’s unbelievable.” 

“You’re cute, too,” Isak says softly, turning to look at him. “And unbelievable. You’re practically a dream.” 

Isak leans in again to kiss him, mouth soft, holding his jaw gently with his left hand. It feels so good just to be here with him. To touch him and hold him and to be held by him. 

“Isak,” Even whispers, so quiet it’s like the sea breeze says it. 

Isak tosses his leg over Even’s waist to straddle him. He looks down at him, at this incredible man, and knows he was meant to find himself this late in life. Meant to experience so many lows just to have highs this large, this insurmountable. 

Isak leans down to kiss him again and lets himself enjoy something so pure, just this once without a single worry in mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me some thoughts? i'd really appreciate it.


	3. lovely bird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the Polish: thanks to Everyskyisblue for helping me with Polish translations!   
> 
> 
> cw: sexual content

Jonas seems to live in Isak’s dreams. 

Maybe it’s due to the time difference or the fact that Isak’s feelings for him are so apparent, or maybe it’s just because he’s so open. Jonas is so accessible and in touch with his emotions that when Isak’s thoughts lead to him, it leads him straight into his dreams. 

Even’s thoughts are never that easy, though perhaps Isak shouldn’t compare them. Somehow that feels wrong to him. Jonas and Even are two sides of a coin. Two parts of Isak's heart. Different, yes, but also the same. 

Isak falls asleep on his couch in the middle of entering the final grades and wakes up across the table from an older woman with dark hair and smile lines. 

She’s eating a plate of waffles and smiling as Isak tells her about a conference in California he might attend in the winter. A medical conference. 

When Isak looks down at his hands, they’re tan and thin, doctor’s hands. The woman across from him is Jonas’ mother, Maggie, looking beautiful and regal. 

"It sounds like fun," Maggie says. "I think you should go...but be careful. Those yanks are batshit." 

Isak grins, laughs a little. Americans _are_ batshit; she's definitely not joking about that. 

"When am I not careful?" 

"Every time you leave the fucking house," she says with fond exasperation. "Promise? That place can be so dangerous." 

She means because he's not entirely white and the US is known for its racism. Also because of the President who preaches his hatred for immigrants of color. 

"It's not like I'm going to Alabama, mum. California's probably the most liberal state in the entire place." 

"Just be careful, alright? Call me if you get into trouble." 

"Of course I will, but there won't be any to begin with. I'm just going to a conference." 

Jonas' mother doesn't seem assuaged entirely, but she continues eating and lets it drop. 

Isak's not really awake, so he doesn't have the wherewithal to wonder, but he had no idea Jonas was coming to California. Perhaps it's a new plan, something he just decided on, or maybe it's been in the works so long he forgot to mention it. 

Either way, Isak is too tired to pay attention. 

"How's dad?" Jonas asks and his voice comes out of Isak's mouth. "He feeling better?" 

"You know your father," she rolls her eyes. "Tough as nails, stubborn as a mule. You should stop by soon to see him before you go." 

"I will." 

Jonas shuts his eyes to blink, leaving Isak in darkness once again. He's aware of it, but only just so. He is asleep but aware.

How strange. 

Isak tries to open his eyes, but he can't, so he just counts backwards from 100 and drifts off to sleep. 

* * *

When Isak wakes, he's in someone else's home, asleep on someone else's couch. The apartment smells different, like fresh washed clothes and detergent, and the couch is firm underneath him like it goes ignored often. 

It is perhaps midnight here, wherever he is, and the windows in the apartment are dark with the curtains drawn. No moon outside, or at least none that Isak can see. 

The place feels deserted, vacant despite the belongings scattered around the rooms. Perhaps it is not the apartment giving off that lonely feeling, but the person who inhabits it. 

Either way, Isak doesn’t like it. 

"Hello?" He calls out, looking around, lost. 

There's a black suit jacket draped over the back of the couch he's laying on, so he rifles through the pockets in an attempt to identify this place and finds a rosary. 

He holds it in one hand and sighs. It _has_ to be Mikael. Who else in the cluster is Catholic?

"Mikael?" He calls out again, standing up with the beads still in hand. "Hello?" 

Isak is, of course, in no danger of being murdered by a stranger, but he still hesitates. Sneaks around the tidy apartment like he's a spy, hiding and crouching and watching and waiting. He doesn't want Mikael to know he's there, doesn't want to feel the negativity that he so regularly exudes. 

There's an old photo on the table beside the door, framed in dark colored wood. Mikael, his mom, and his best friend, Adam. 

Isak can remember the day like he lived it himself, which isn't normally odd, but he has never felt so able to reach so easily for Mikael's memories. He has never allowed Isak that close, despite months of being connected. Maybe he allows it because he is unaware of Isak's presence entirely. 

He should be quieter. 

The photo was taken when Mikael and Adam were kids and were on their way to church on Christmas eve. His mom had taken them, because Adam's parents didn't go to mass, but Mikael was so happy to be hanging out with Adam that it didn't matter that she was embarrassing him. It was a happy and pure night. 

Isak moves past it, deeper into the small apartment, and finds a tidy bathroom, too. Mikael is perhaps the cleanest guy Isak has ever met. 

Even his shampoo bottles are put away beneath his sink to keep the shower clean! Who does that? 

“What are you doing?” Mikael asks, sneaking up on Isak as he reads the label on a strange expensive-looking bottle of shampoo. 

“I’m not entirely sure. I just...woke up here. What time is it anyway?” 

“Midnight.” 

“Why are you awake?” 

Isak knows enough about Mikael to know that he has a strict bedtime ritual. In bed by 9:30, asleep by 10, awake by 6. 

He’s also fully dressed in jeans and a well-ironed white button-down. A golden cross glints at his neck, tucked away beneath his collar. Isak can feel that he has some deep attachment to the jewelry, but can't find out why. 

He looks really good, but Isak would never tell him that. It would make him uncomfortable if he knew Isak noticed he was beautiful, noticed how cute he was. 

“I’m going out,” he says warily. “Why do you have my rosary?” 

“I found it.” 

“Oh.” 

“Where are you going?” 

Mikael starts to walk farther into the bathroom where he adjusts his hair, which is longer than it’s ever been before, and sprays cologne on himself. It smells really good, too. 

Isak gets an idea before he even searches for the answer, but even as he’s saying it, he knows he shouldn’t. Bad idea!

“On a _date?"_

Mikael flushes beet red in an instant, hands shaking, mouth stuttering, and Isak frowns, confused as to why this upsets him so thoroughly. It’s not like Isak said anything inappropriate, either. 

He backtracks anyway, afraid of his anger, his irrational fear, his shame. 

“Okay, okay. Not a date.” 

Whatever this feeling is that’s coming from Mikael, it’s strong. Isak can feel it like a thick layer of oil all over his body, like he’s coated in whatever negative emotion it is. But he can feel Mikael’s embarrassment and shame, too, on top of it all.

It’s exhausting and disgusting and miserable. 

How does Mikael live like this?

“I’m going out with Adam,” Mikael says after a while, washing his hands vigorously in the sink. “We’ve got tickets to a show.” 

The water is pure hot, no cold at all, and his hands turn bright red from the heat of it. Isak can feel he’s in pain, can feel the validation in the action, the relief in the burn, and he reaches out to turn off the faucet, pulling Mikael’s hands out of the stream with the other hand. 

“What are you doing?” Isak scowls, upset at Mikael’s actions. “Stop.” 

“No, _you_ stop.” Mikael is scowling, too, as he yanks his hands from Isak’s, embarrassed again. “Stop being ridiculous.” 

“I’m being ridiculous? You’re burning yourself. _You’re_ being ridiculous. Why are you doing that?” It is so frustrating to feel the connection between them and be so unable to use it. “Just fucking let me in so I can _help_ you. You obviously need us, Mikael. You don’t have to do this all on your own.” 

“No one can help me,” Mikael says pathetically, miserably. “I am alone. I have always been alone and I will always _be_ alone. That is my destiny” 

This is not the moment for a Sensorium pride speech, even though Mikael so desperately needs it, so Isak sighs. Changes course. 

“And Adam?” 

“He’s just my friend. I don’t...let him in...like that.” Mikael closes his eyes and squeezes the edge of the sink hard. “It’s wrong.” 

“Wrong?” Isak asks, confused. “What’s wrong about having close friends?” 

“It’s wrong to talk about feelings...to weigh other men down with my problems. I’m a man...and I have to deal with this on my own. These are my problems alone...and maybe a...a _wife,_ if that ever happens for me, will be able to help me. Then I won’t be alone anymore. But until then, it’s my cross to bear. On my own.” 

“You say wife like you’re dreading it.” Isak knows the sound of someone who doesn’t want to marry since he lived that reality his entire life pretty much. 

Mikael says nothing, just presses his fists against his eyes and sighs out frustratedly. He’s so full of frustration, of anger, that it sickens Isak. He feels nauseated with all of Mikael’s pent-up, unreadable, confusing emotions. 

He's so repressed, so full of everything and anything, that it's nearly impossible too understand him at all. 

But painstakingly, Isak manages to recognize something and then he understands at least some tiny part of what Mikael’s feeling. 

“Because you _do_ dread it,” Isak says, trying to understand, head tipped to the right a little. 

“I don’t want a wife,” he says painfully, like he’s carving the words in his flesh with a sharp knife. “I never did.” 

“Then you don’t have to have one, Mikael.” Isak is trying so hard to connect with him. “Plenty of people don’t marry and they’re happy that way. It’s fine whether you marry someone or not. Not a single one of us is gonna judge you for that.” 

“I can’t…” Mikael turns away, flushed red in embarrassment and shame. “It’s not…I’m…”

His shame, like his frustration, is so visceral. Isak can feel the blush on his own cheeks from feeling Mikael’s emotions, can feel the urge to run away like it’s his own. 

“Talk to me.” Isak says with irritation at his back, frustration and pleading bleeding into his voice. “Please!” 

He just can’t deal with his feeling anymore! It’s so suffocating. He might actually vomit. 

“Go away!” Mikael screams, backed into the corner of the small bathroom. “Leave me alone!” 

“You want to tell me so badly I can fucking feel it, so why don’t you? I’ll bear some of the weight with you, Mikael, because you will never be alone again. You don’t need to feel uncomfortable about sharing your stupid feelings with men, because I will always feel yours as if they were my own and you will always feel mine, so it’s not even worth fighting it! This is _our_ cross now, not just yours, so just fucking tell me already!" 

“Get out of my head!” He shouts again, crying angry, shameful tears, hands in tight fists. “Go!” 

And this time, he gets his way. 

Isak shoots up on his couch in his living room, panting and tossing with rage. He’s not sure why he’s so angry, why he’s positively burning up with it, but then he gets it. Mikael’s negative feeling. His pain. His watchful gaze. They’re infecting Isak in the same way his cluster’s positive emotions do, leaking into his own life like acid. 

* * *

Isak spends his lunch break on the final day of school with Mahdi in a McDonald’s laughing over banana milkshakes (which Dutch McDonald’s have!) and chicken nuggets. Mahdi probably looks crazy, talking and laughing all by himself, but no one says anything to him. Maybe they think he's got headphones in or something. 

It’s a great time, even if brief, and Isak starts to think that he and Magnus would get along great. Mahdi is smart and intelligent, but also kind and understanding. He is almost entirely the opposite of Magnus, who is brash and a little dense, but also kind at heart, so Isak’s sure it would work out. 

Maybe one day. 

Afterwards, he sits through his last class of seniors and gives them their final grades. Most of them have done well, and that’s all he can ask of them, so he lets them have the period to themselves. Someone plays music, which is raucous and fun, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves enough. 

Isak spends the time with his phone pressed to his ear as he stares off in space and speaks to Eva in rapid fire Quebecois French. 

“I’m just so worn out, you know?” Eva says with a sigh. “I’m working long hours just to afford my fucking apartment.” 

“Is it that bad there?” Isak frowns. 

Eva’s a part of his cluster, of course, but he has no concept of the housing crisis in Canada. The one in the US, he’s intimately aware of, though. He'd thought Canada would be better than here, at least, but it seems he was wrong. 

“Most expensive city in Canada, or so the stats go. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone’s supposed to live like this.” 

“Fuck,” Isak says softly, upset for them. 

They just nod their head slowly, a tired look on their face. 

“If there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it,” Isak says truthfully. “I’m here for you.” 

“I know,” Eva grins. “Noora said you’d say that.” 

“Did she?” 

“She thinks you have a hero complex.” 

Isak scowls, “I do not.” 

“Whatever,” Eva says placatingly, smiling a little. “How’s Noora doing with the culture shock?” 

“She’s taking it surprisingly well. She really enjoys the museums here...She’s been to about every single fucking one.” 

“I think speaking a bunch of languages helps,” Eva says softly, fondly. “She feels better at home when she can understand what’s going on around her.”

Isak smiles to himself, watching them be all fond and cute over Noora, and then he says, “You like her, don’t you?” 

“I do.” 

“Then kiss her, you idiot.” 

They make an affronted face like they’re actually angry, but can’t keep it up. It slides into a bashful grin as they sigh and Isak grins back. He feels what Eva feels, so he gets it. 

Hesitation, a little embarrassment, nervousness. 

“Would Noora be your first girlfriend?” 

“Yeah...I’ve had boyfriends before, but, like, it’s different. It feels more important...this thing between me and her. It feels monumental.” 

Isak gets that. 

“I just don’t want to fuck it up, you know? I’m sort of the master of fucking things up.” 

Isak gets that, too. 

“It’s so much easier,” Isak says, “and so much harder to have relationships now. I can know every single thing they feel or think or say, but also they know every single thing I feel, think, and say, so it seems to get muddled very, very easily.” 

“Facts,” Eva says with a sigh. “Well, I better head back to work. I can’t lose this fucking job.” 

“I’ll see you later?” 

“Of course,” they grin, nudge Isak with their elbow, and then they’re gone.

* * *

Isak is walking home from work, ready for his summer vacation, when he sees Eskild across the road. He’s not looking at Isak, not even paying attention to anyone but the cute boy he’s talking to in the line outside Starbucks, so Isak tries to visit him while staying where he is physically. 

It doesn’t work. Isak’s gotten better at this, so it’s a shock to see it not work since it’s seeming to come more naturally to him every day. 

He goes to the crosswalk and crosses, running a little to make it before he gets run over by a car. 

“Eskild!” Isak calls out, not yelling, but not whispering, either. “Eskild!” 

Eskild pauses his conversation with the cute black-haired boy and turns, looking through the crowd until he spots Isak. 

_“Przepraszam,”_ Eskild says to the guy, smirking a little towards the end. _“Muszę iść. Zadzwoń?” ~~"Sorry, I have to go. Call me?"~~_

The guy grins, says, _“Będę. Do zobaczenia później.” ~~"I will. See you later."~~_

Then after the exchange that means nothing to Isak because it’s entirely in Polish, he kisses the man on the cheek and runs to meet Isak down the block. 

“Isak!” Eskild says brightly. “How are you?” 

“Alright...Coming home from work. You?” 

“Oh, I’m flying home tomorrow.” He sighs a little somberly, looking around. 

“You’re leaving?” 

Isak is suddenly unable to reach Eskild and then he just up and leaves. How rude!

Eskild sighs, a frustrated and tired sound, and says, “I have to be with my family now. Poland is...There’s a lot of shit going on right now.” 

“Like what?” 

“It’s really bad for gay and trans people there right now. Lots of people are saying LGBTQ+ people are child molesters, that gay marriage threatens ‘traditonal’ ideals, that Poland is being 'indoctrinated' with these ‘western’ ideas. There is basically a gay-free zone the size of Hungary in our country.” 

“‘Gay free’?” 

“Well, gay, lesbian, bi, and trans free, but yeah. So I have to go back and protest. Fight for what’s right for my people and my family.” 

Isak furrows his brow, but nods a little. Gets that he has to be there for his family despite the danger it may pose for himself. 

“Promise you’ll be careful? And that you’ll ask if you need any help?” Isak asks, a little pathetically. “We only have one dad.” 

Eskild laughs a little, smiling, as he says, “Of course! Now I have these to protect myself.” 

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an orange pill bottle with a white lid. Inside, large black capsules rattle around quietly, looking innocent enough. 

“And those are…?” 

“Blockers, _mój synu!"_ He looks happy on the surface, but Isak can see the worry in his eyes. _~~"...my son!"~~_

It must be very serious in Poland. Isak vows to go home and do some research, because he doesn’t like to be ignorant with what’s going on in other places. 

“Blockers? Like for the...psycellium?” He whispers the word, afraid of anyone overhearing. 

“Of course! That’s why you can’t visit me and why you had to walk your flat ass all the way over here.” 

Isak scowls, but says, “Can you send us the recipe or something?” 

“I can do better than that.” He turns, looking up the street. 

The dark-haired man is still in line just ten yards from where they stand. Eskild gives Isak a wild grin and then puts his hand to the side of his mouth. 

“Ignacy!” Eskild calls out, jogging up towards him. “Chodź tu!” _~~"Come here!"~~_

The dark-haired man, Ignacy, turns and smiles as Eskild approaches. 

They share a brief somewhat ruffled conversation. Ignacy seems hesitant to leave the line as he’s nearing the front and there's a dozen or so people behind him, but he relents after a moment. 

Eskild is relentless to everyone, apparently. Good to know. 

“Ig,” Eskild says as they approach Isak once again, “this is Isak.” 

“Hi,” Ig says awkwardly. 

“Hey.” Isak is just as awkward, if not more. 

He hates meeting new people. Small talk and weird laughs and them pretending they give a shit about what he has to say. Ugh. 

When he looks in Ig’s eyes, he doesn’t feel any differently. Not like when he first saw Eskild or met one of his cluster. He just feels separate. 

Maybe that’s because he is. Eskild is his sensate dad, the others are his family. This guy, he’s nothing to Isak. Maybe that’s just manifesting itself for Isak to feel. 

“Ig’s one of us,” Eskild whispers conspiratorially. “He’s from my...band.” 

Band is synonymous with cluster, apparently. 

“Are you the pharmacist?” 

“No, I’m the distributor.” Ig has a funny accent. 

Not Polish, or at least not the same as Eskild’s. It’s maybe South American? Isak isn’t sure. 

“I see.” 

“Isak’s my son,” Eskild says proudly. “Doesn’t he look just like me?” 

Eskild grabs a hold of Isak’s chin and draws their faces close together for comparison. Ig is not impressed, but he’s trying not to smile at Eskild’s antics, and failing. 

“Ig’s gonna hook you and your...bandmates up with some...acid.” Eskild is an awful liar, apparently. 

Isak almost laughs at the ridiculousness of the entire exchange. Acid is a fitting cover story, though, since they _are_ apparently in a band together. 

“I don’t know how you’ll get it to them, though, if they’re located worldwide...but I guess that’s your problem, _mój synu_. Now that you and Ig are connected, he’ll let you know when he’s got enough for you.” _~~"...my son."~~_

“What’s in them?” Jonas asks, appearing almost instantly, despite it being 6:23 on an Australian Saturday morning. “How does it affect the brain?” 

“It blocks the receptors in the nervous system...so that, for a short time, you’ll experience life as a… music listener,” Ig says, like he’s listening to another of their cluster tell him and repeating it for Isak to hear. “You will be unable to visit with your...band, will be unable to access their knowledge, be unable to make connections with other...musicians, and entirely human, even just for a short while.” 

“We’re keeping the recipe quiet,” Eskild says. “Partially because I can’t pronounce 95% of the chemicals in it, but partially because it’s a work in progress.” 

“You’ll feel pretty nauseated on them. Esk threw up his first time.” 

“I did,” Eskild says a little bashfully. “You get used to it.” 

“Not really,” Ig says flatly. “They’re really only for emergencies. A life on acid is no life at all.” 

“Well, I’d love to hang around and chat, but I’ve got a flight to catch. When I’m home, Isak, the _acid_ should be worn off, so you should be able to contact me if you need anything.” 

Isak nods, then, looks at Eskild and nods again. 

Blockers. Cool. At least then Isak and his cluster can be sure they’re safe, wherever they go. 

“See you soon?” Isak asks, and Eskild grins. 

_“Oczywiście, mój synu!”_ Eskild says back, bright as ever, and then he turns to walk away. _~~"Of course, my son!"~~_

Ig nods at Isak once, looking him over, and then he turns back and returns to the even longer Starbucks line. 

Isak turns back to Jonas, who isn’t alone anymore, and meets his eyes. 

“Good thing?” Isak asks. 

“I don’t know,” Jonas says with a shrug. “Until one of us experiences it for ourselves, we really won’t.” 

Yousef says, “You shouldn’t be alone when you try it, Isak. Just in case anything happens, you should have someone with you.” 

“Noora?” 

“Of course I’ll be there with you, идиот.” _~~"...idiot."~~_

“And then so will we,” Mahdi says brightly. “It’ll be so weird to not feel the connection to you.”

“Let’s just hope these work,” Even says, a little on edge. "I get the feeling we're going to need them soon."

* * *

Isak’s sitting in a bathtub full of bubbles. It’s not his bathtub, because he doesn’t _have_ a tub, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the water smells nice and it’s the perfect temperature and Isak _loves_ baths. 

If only he could take more baths!

Jonas is sitting in the tub across from him, head tipped back, up to his chest in suds. He looks so relaxed, as relaxed as Isak feels, that Isak can’t bring himself to disturb him. 

“This is so nice,” Jonas says, unmoving. “I’m so glad my mum bought me this spa day.” 

Jonas’ mom thinks he works too hard— and she’s right— so last Christmas, she paid for a full day at the spa. He hadn't used it until now, thank God, so Isak gets to partake in it, too. 

Isak would be content to just sit here all day in this tub. 

“We needed this,” Jonas adds. “You and me. Wish Even was here, too.” 

Isak’s smile spreads far and wide when he asks, “Should we invite him?” 

“He’s probably asleep, but we can try.” 

Isak does try. He closes his eyes in an Australian spa and opens them in a fancy French hotel room. It’s still dark outside, but Even is awake and staring at his face in the mirror. Naked besides a pair of underwear and a long gold chain at his neck. 

He doesn’t jump when Isak and Jonas appear behind him like the twins in The Shining. Instead, he looks at them and a smirk builds on his mouth, slow and steady. 

“Hello,” he says softly, blinking gently. “What are you two up to?”

“Taking a bath,” Isak says. 

“Care to join us?” Jonas asks. 

And then they return to Australia and there’s three of them in this large, round, bubbly bathtub. It’s so big they all easily fit. Of course, Even and Isak are not really there, but it’s nice. Isak can feel Jonas’ hand on his knee and Even’s ankle by his foot. 

“This is lovely,” Even says. “Tell your mum thanks.” 

“I’ll be sure to,” Jonas says, biting his lip a little. “She’ll just be glad I got some relaxation time.” 

Isak smiles, head tipped back against the rim of the bathtub, as Jonas’ hand shifts higher. Slowly, to allow Isak to make a choice, so Isak casually reaches down and pulls his hand higher. 

His skin is so soft beneath Isak’s hand, so gentle, that when he brushes his dick, he gasps. 

“Can I?” Jonas asks and Isak tips his head back up to nod. 

“Can _we?”_ Even asks, suddenly very close. 

Isak’s voice is no more than a whisper when he begs, “Yes.” 

And they do. 

Jonas’ hand touches his upper thigh where his legs ends, wraps around his hip firmly, as Even leans in to kiss his neck, his shoulder, his skin. 

God, everywhere they touch, like fire, like snow, like a frozen volcano erupting. Is that even possible? Is Isak making any fucking sense whatsoever?

Isak gasps when Jonas’ mouth touches his, kisses him with one hand behind his ear, and the other on his side, his thigh, his ass. 

It’s all so much, so gloriously good and pure, that Isak can’t breathe. Jonas’ kisses are fervent, hot with excitement, and his mouth is impossibly perfect. Fits just right, tastes even better. 

“Jonas,” he whispers against his mouth, “please.” 

Even’s mouth wanders, his hands all over, beautiful and dangerous and sexy as hell. 

Suddenly, they aren’t in the tub at all anymore and they’re in Isak’s apartment on his bed. Jonas’ skin is slick with oil and water and Even is sprawled out beside him, chain glinting at his neck. A small gold coin hangs at the center. 

“Much better,” Even says and kisses Isak himself. 

Jonas’ mouth is everywhere while Even’s is on Isak’s and simultaneously they’re all kissing, somewhere, sometime, someplace. In France, in Australia, in fucking Washington. Even’s kissing Isak and Isak’s watching Even and Jonas kiss and Jonas is kissing Isak and it’s all so hot and overwhelming. 

“Jesus Christ,” Isak pants, tracing his tongue down the center of Even’s back as Jonas kisses him in the hotel room. “This is amazing.” 

In the tub, he’s on Jonas’ lap, kissing him and grinding down on his erection as Even presses against him from behind. Their skin is so warm, all of them, so soft and smooth, that it’s effortless. Invigorating. It feels to good to be touched like this, to touch them like that. 

It's all Isak's ever wanted and more. So much more. 

Jonas’ mouth is wide open as he pants, Isak pressed tight against his chest, his thighs. Even’s holding him firmly from behind, lifting them all so the rhythm is smooth, silken. Easy. 

Jonas’ dick presses against Isak’s ass as Even kisses him over Isak’s shoulder. The sight, the feel, the knowledge, is so much better than anything Isak could have dreamed. So perfect. 

He’s not going to last very long. 

In Isak’s bedroom, Isak has his mouth on Even’s dick as Jonas kisses him, ghosting fingers over his neck and shoulders and arms. 

He’s gasping and writhing beneath them, completely unable to help himself, and Isak feels how close he is, how close they all are, how much they all want this. 

When he comes, Isak feels it like it’s his own. Fire and ice in veins and pure pleasure in heart. He can’t breathe for a second at the pure joy of it, but then Jonas is coming, too, and it’s all so much. 

So fucking much. 

He grinds down harder, faster, against Jonas in the bathtub, whining softly when his dick brushes against Jonas’ stomach, but Even’s there, too, guiding him rhythmically. Helping him through it. Helping them all through it. 

Jonas is so lost in relief that he stills for a moment, overwhelmed because of all of the emotions and feelings, and then he’s back. Sitting between Isak’s thighs in Even’s hotel room as Even mouths at his chest, his stomach, his nipples. 

He takes Isak’s dick into his mouth and Isak gasps, rocks a little gently, as Even holds him in place. His mouth, their mouths, feel so fucking good it hurts. 

Isak cries out their names as the pleasure overtakes him, as he loses himself in the all encompassing joy of it all. 

Suns burst into supernovas and collapse into black holes as Isak comes, as Jonas’ mouth tightens around him, as Even’s teeth brush his skin. 

“Oh my God,” Isak cries out, unable to help himself. “Oh my fucking God.”

* * *

Isak gets his bottle of pills two weeks after meeting Ig. 

He’s lounging on his couch with Noora, watching some weird lesbian sci-fi show that Noora seems to like, while waiting for him. 

Isak gave him their address so he could drop them off. 

In the meantime, they watch tv and Isak plays on his phone. It’s not that he doesn’t like the show, but Noora’s watching the penultimate episode of the 1st season, so he doesn’t see the point in trying to follow along if he hasn't seen any of it before. 

When the doorbell rings, mysteriously so does Noora’s phone. 

Isak gets up to answer the door while Noora answers her phone. Bright daylight stings Isak’s eyes as he cracks the door to see Ig standing there in dark blue overalls and a black t-shirt. He looks cute and Isak decides he needs overalls like those. 

“Got your blockers,” Ig says with a shrug. “Gotta run though, so I’ll see you later.” 

Isak takes the box, which contains 8 orange pill bottles full of black capsules, and nods.

“Thanks, Ig.” 

When Isak turns back around after closing the door, nerves have closed up his throat. He’s worried he’s going to vomit and worried something bad will happen, but it should be okay. With Noora here, he isn’t alone in this, at least. 

Perhaps if he has an allergic reaction, Jonas can tell her what to do, considering he shouldn't go to a doctor for that type of thing. If they were to scan his brain, they'd all be fucked. 

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Noora says into her phone. “Thank you! Thank you so much.” 

When she hangs up, she’s grinning and laughing and Isak can feel pure, uncomplicated joy. 

“I got fucking asylum!” She shouts and Isak forgets his anxiety in happiness for her. 

He tosses the box onto the chair and she hugs him, squeezing him so hard it hurts. He’s laughing into the air beside her face, thinking of how glad he is that Noora chose the USA, and she’s crying in delight. He tears up in joy for her, in relief that she gets to stay. 

“Thank you,” she says, pulling back, suddenly serious. “Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t do anything, Noora. That was all you. I just...was here for you.” 

“I wouldn’t have anywhere to live, any friends here, if not for you. It’s all thanks to you.” 

“Agree to disagree?” Isak asks, because he really had nothing to do with it. 

He doesn't want any of the credit because it all belongs to her. She deserves this win. 

“Alright, fine.” She rolls her eyes, still grinning. “Should we get the others?” 

“If they’re awake, yeah. They’re gonna be so happy for you.” 

“I meant for the blockers, dummy.” 

“Oh, yeah, that too.” 

Isak and Noora go wake the rest of their cluster, if they aren’t already up. It’s after 5 am in Australia, but Jonas is up already, putting on sneakers and shorts to go for a run. 

“What’s up?” 

“Come on.” Isak smiles softly, reaching for his hand. “Let’s go get the others.” 

Everyone, for once, is awake. Isak makes the decision to get Mikael, because he should have a say in this, too, and he’s awake. He looks at Isak with wariness, but comes regardless. 

Isak remembers their last conversation, the argument, the explosion. He wants to apologize for crossing the line, but how? 

It’s all Isak can ask for from him, honestly. 

When everyone is gathered, Noora tells them the news. 

“I just got political asylum.” 

Congratulations and embraces and laughs echo the room as everyone sighs in relief. Noora does not have to return to Russia, to regular beatings by homophobes, to screaming roommates, to neglectful parents. 

Isak spots the soft glance, the lingering embrace, that Noora and Eva share and he grins to himself. Fucking adorable. 

Once everyone’s calmed down a little, Noora says, “Also Isak got the blockers, so we’re gonna try them out.” 

“Ah, shit,” Mahdi says flatly. “Will we experience the nausea, too? I'm getting ready to eat a snack." 

“I don’t think so,” Isak says, smiling a little despite himself. “We should be entirely disconnected while I’m sick, so you should be able to snack undisturbed.” 

“How long do they work for?” 

“Not sure. As long as a plane ride to Poland, I guess.”

Eskild had said he took one before his flight, so that makes sense to Isak. But how long is a flight to Warsaw? 12 hours?

Isak looks around and then grabs a pill bottle. He takes one large black capsule and holds in between two fingers. Looks around again and meets the worried eyes of his cluster. Sees his own anxiety reflected back to him in Jonas’ face, in Even’s shoulders, in Yousef’s mouth, in Eva's brows. 

Then he puts it in his mouth and swallows it with a drink of his water. 

For a moment, nothing happens. Isak is standing there looking at his cluster with furrowed brows, sweat clinging to his forehead, anxiety tying knots in his lower back and stomach. 

He’s already so nauseated; how could it possibly get any worse? 

“It’s gonna be fine,” Jonas says reassuringly. “You're’ gonna be alright.” 

Isak doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his entire life to himself again. He’s going to be so lonely without his cluster, without his family. 

In between one heartbeat and the next, he starts to hear this sound. It’s like the blades of a fan slicing through the air, like a helicopter in the sky overhead, like a speaker being punched over and over again. It speeds up and up until Isak shuts his eyes hard to drown it out, reaches to cover his ears like a child. 

When he opens them, he’s all alone in his head. He feels so vacant, so emotionless, so empty. 

He can see Noora, but he can’t feel her like he normally can. Wonders if he can even speak Russian since they aren’t connected. 

He tries anyway, to be sure. 

“Am I speaking Russian?” He asks, chewing on the inside of his cheek, hopeful. “Is this Russian?” 

“It’s English, Isak.” 

“Fuck.” And then the nausea starts to hit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think?????


	4. sad boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another update! i wrote all of this p much in one night instead of doing my spanish homework. hope you enjoy!
> 
> cw: homophobia, religion, Catholicism 
> 
> (also i'm not catholic, so idfk anything they do. i did some research on it, ofc, but let me know if anything's wrong! same goes for the turkish in this chapter!)

Isak spends the next 12 hours in complete sensorium isolation. Noora’s with him, of course, and their cluster is with her, but Isak can feel none of it. Can’t sense their emotions, can’t use their abilities, can’t even _see_ them. 

It’s such a sad existence. How had he lived so many years as a sapien thinking that was life? That loneliness was a normal and unavoidable occurrence? 

He and Noora fall asleep on the couch while watching a scary movie and Isak has nightmares where he’s the only living person left after a zombie apocalypse, where he’s alone on a sinking ship, where he chases the sounds of laughter at his own expense as he runs barefoot over broken glass and upturned nails. 

He wakes up in a cold sweat and his stomach gurgles unhappily. Noora’s beside him, dozing off on her side of the couch with a blanket tossed over her, as he lurches up and toward the bathroom, vomit in his throat. 

He sits in front of the toilet, contemplating his existence until he actually pukes into it. He hasn’t eaten in several hours, so it’s mostly stomach acid, but it’s still awful. 

He feels disgusting. He wants his cluster back and he wants his stomach to calm down. 

After a while when he doesn’t feel so sickly, he stands and rinses his mouth with mouthwash. Brushes his teeth. Rinses again. Just so he can feel better.

When he looks up at himself in the mirror, expecting a pale, sweaty mess, Mikael stands behind him like a ghost. 

Isak starts, jumping up and screaming a little in fright, as Mikael just looks at him in the mirror from over his shoulder. Deadpan. Emotionless. Terrifying. 

When Isak turns, he’s not there at all, and he wonders if he imagined him. If he’s still on blockers and made it all up as some sick way to torture himself further. It's totally possible, which is the worst part. Life on blockers truly does fucking suck. 

He groans a little as he goes back into the living room, on edge, to find Noora’s still asleep. He turns the television off and wonders if he should wake her. Tell her to return to her room to sleep so she doesn't feel sore tomorrow. 

But he doesn't want to disturb her, so he just sits down at the kitchen counter and makes a cup of tea as quietly as he can. He wasn’t a big tea-drinker before his sensorium birth, but now that he’s connected to 7 people who all _love_ tea, he’s cultivated the habit. With some sugar and cream, it’s pretty good, and he thinks it might settle his stomach some. 

He just hopes he’s right.

* * *

By the time they wear off, Isak’s at his wits end. He’s tired and he can’t sleep like this. So disconnected, like he’s in a joint reality where he’s human again, where he’s back living his boring regular life with Emma and no one else. He's restless and afraid and vacant inside. He tosses and turns for hours on the couch, uncomfortable and itchy, trying desperately to find someone somewhere around the world to talk to. 

When he finally makes a connection to someone, it’s just after 6 am in both Seattle and Vancouver. 

“Eva!” He says, grinning wildly. “I’m so glad to see you!” 

Eva’s just as happy to see him and they give him a big hug. They're wearing pajamas still, but they've got shimmery eyeshadow and long lashes on, which means they've been up for a while. 

“Glad you’re alright,” they say, looking _beyond_ happy. 

It can’t just be that Isak survived the blockers, either. It’s a deeper kind of happy, something inside Eva’s chest and heart, and not a surface level thing like blockers. 

“What happened?” Isak asks, laughing, moving his eyebrows up and down twice. “You and Noora? While I sat on the couch with her?!” 

“No,” Eva grins, laughing at his horrified face. “In my apartment, she kissed me.” 

“Aw,” Isak says, smiling. “That's fucking awesome! You got the girl.” 

“I did, didn’t I?” Eva’s so happy they’re shining with it like sunlight. “What are your plans for the day?” 

“I’m gonna spend the day looking for a summer job,” Isak admits a little somberly. “School’s over now and I don’t have Emma’s half for rent, so I’m figuring it out.” 

“Mood,” Eva says. “Rent is too expensive. And for what?” 

“Basic human rights, apparently. It fucking sucks.” 

“That it does.” 

“What’re you doing? Spending the day cuddling Noora on my couch?” 

“I wish! Instead, I must battle the mean customers in a coffee shop at half seven in the morning.” 

“Good luck,” Isak says, shaking his head. “I’ll be right there with you soon.”

* * *

Isak puts in applications on Indeed for a couple hours before Noora wakes. He’s tired, but determined, and when Noora sees what he’s doing, she rolls her eyes. 

“You could’ve just asked for some money, Isak. I’ve got some saved up for you.” 

“I don’t want your money, Noora. You’ve only been here a little while anyway.” 

She scowls at him viciously, crosses her arms over her chest. Iak almost laughs in her face, because she's not frightening in the least. 

“Please don’t. What’s your Paypal? I’ll send you some for rent and groceries and things. I’m going to file my EAD tomorrow and then when I hear back, I’ll get working papers! Then I can really contribute.” 

This makes Isak sigh. She doesn't have to, not really. He'll be fine. They'll be fine. 

“Then wait to give me money until your EAD comes back, alright? We’re fine for now, Noora.” 

“I can just hack into your phone and send a request to myself for the money. You know that, right? I know your password.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“Our brains are connected, genius,” she laughs. “What does 0418 mean to you anyways?” 

Isak scowls and sighs again. What a pain Noora can sometimes be. She is perhaps even more stubborn than Magnus is and that’s saying something. 

“It was my dog’s birthday in elementary school.” 

“Rocky?” Noora asks, grinning wickedly as she uses her connection into his brain against him. “Cute!” 

“Fuck off,” he says without weight. “Go find a job, freeloader.” 

“Will do,” she says, too busy laughing to be offended, walking toward her bedroom. “Text me your Paypal!” 

Isak sighs begrudgingly and grabs his phone, knowing she might just really hack into his phone and do it herself.

* * *

Isak sees Mikael all over the place now. It seems it really was him through the blocker haze watching him puke his guts out. Nice of him to not ask if Isak was okay. 

Mikael is starting to appear more in the background of Isak’s life. Ghosting around the edges of his vision like a phantom or a spirit, always standing just out of reach in Isak’s peripheral vision and disappearing when noticed. He always looks the same when he meets Isak’s eyes, always closed off, always afraid. 

One night when Isak is out with Noora and Magnus and his cluster is all around him, dancing to a song he doesn’t know in a bar he’s never been to, he appears. Watching. Waiting. Contemplating. 

Isak’s begun to think he’s looking to feed them all to the Cannibal so he can be normal again or whatever. What other thing could it be? Why else would he watch Isak’s life so carefully? Perhaps he is doing it to all of the others, too, and they just haven't noticed yet. Writing down details and making mental notes of places they hang out at, people they love, routines they do, so they'll be easier to hunt down. 

Isak breaks off from Noora, knowing she’s safe from any predators in this bar with their cluster dancing beside her, and chases Mikael through a crowd of writhing bodies as music pounds his eardrums. 

Mikael leads him into a quiet corner where it’s dark and secluded. The perfect place to lure him right into the Cannibal’s grasp. 

He’s not afraid, though. There’s a small black capsule in his pocket if he needs it and he’s wearing sneakers. He can run and hide, if need be, but only for so long. Long enough to get the blockers to the other 5 members of the cluster, hopefully, and grab Noora and Magnus so they can book it to fucking Greenland or something. 

“Mikael,” Isak says, trying to draw them into Mexico City, “what’s up?” 

Mikael allows it, allows Isak to see his apartment and its aura of loneliness. Of fear. It's such a somber place to be when where he really is is so lively, so exciting. 

“I need to tell you something.” 

“I’m all ears,” Isak says, settling down on the edge of Mikael’s couch as music from Seattle plays gently in the background. 

Maybe it’s a Lizzo song or just nothing he knows at all. Yousef probably knows since music is sort of his industry, but Isak doesn’t care enough to search for the answer. He can also still feel the vibration of the speakers under his feet, making his head pound a little with the reverberations. 

It’s so amazing to be here and there at one time. So unique. How can Mikael hate it so much he’d sentence them all to death just to get rid of it? 

“Your mom...She was Catholic?” He’s so hesitant, so full of fear that Isak can feel nothing else. 

He’s tense with Mikael’s terror, unnerved. Brought to hesitancy with Mikael's emotions. 

“Yes.” 

“My mom and dad and I...We are the same.” 

“I know. Catholicism is a wide-spread disease.” 

Isak has had many bad experiences with religion. Too many to count. 

“Speaking of disease...my mother and father...they've told me since I was very young about people like you...like Noora and Eva and Jonas...you have a disease.” 

“Oh.” Isak furrows his brow, scoffing a little. “Your mom told you gay people had a disease?” 

“Yes. That.” 

“Well, she was _wrong._ My mother also thought the same thing for a long time. Maybe she still would if she was alive, I don’t know. But they’re all wrong.” 

“How do you know?” 

He’s shaking with fear. Isak swallows it, brought to shivering by Mikael’s reaction. He can do nothing else but continue talking. Continue answering. 

Perhaps Mikael’s disconnect is due by total ignorance to gay people, to trans people, to nonbinary people. Maybe he’s just so afraid and confused that he’s pushed all of them away to compensate. 

“Because nothing so pure could ever be evil. When you get the measles, an _actual_ disease, you feel ill. You sneeze and cough and you feel sick and don’t want to get out bed. When I’m with Even and Jonas, it feels the exact opposite of that. It brings me peace, it brings me joy; I am full of life when I'm with them. Don’t you think your God would want everyone to be happy like that? To _live_ like that?” 

“Of course He would.” 

“Then why would He make something so pure a disease?” 

Mikael’s pacing in front of Isak with the coffee table between them, reeking of confusion and hesitance. He’s making Isak really nervous, too nervous to shut up, apparently. 

“Those words you were taught have been tainted over the decades with personal bias. The stories in that book aren’t always accurate in translation, either. People like to use those words against anyone who is different, outside of their norm, but _they’re_ the wrong ones. They’re the ones judging and committing a sin. Your God...he's the Judge, not them.”

Isak thinks of the verses his mother forced him to memorize, of the book of James. _'There is only one law giver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?'_

The memory makes him physically ill. 

“This is so confusing.” Mikael shakes his head, eyes shut. 

Isak is confused, too. Why does Mikael suddenly care about the Catholic church’s view on homosexuality? Why are they having this conversation? What is the purpose of ruining his night with toxic memories of religion? Of nights spent crying over a God that doesn't exist?

“Your God made all people in his image, Mikael,” Isak says, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the line of conversation. “Millions of people are gay and bi and trans. He wouldn’t make such a colossal mistake creating us for the sake of sending us all to hell.” 

Mikael says nothing, just continues pacing in front of Isak, driving him absolutely up the fucking wall. His frustration grows and grows until he can’t help himself. 

He sighs, rubs his eyes with his fingers in stress, and quotes, _“‘It is bad for man to be alone.’”_

Mikael stops pacing to say, _“Genesis 2:18.”_

Isak presses his lips together firmly and looks away. He and Catholicism go way back. Back to a childhood spent with hands clasped, praying for an end to his mother’s illness, his father’s disappearance. For a cure for the feeling inside his chest that felt like smoke in his lungs. 

“Your God wants you to be happy, Mikael, wants us all to be happy. If being with someone who we love makes us happy, well...then we should be with them, no?” 

Mikael sits down on the couch beside Isak, looking utterly defeated. His hair is frizzy and disheveled from running his hands through it and his face is splotchy where he’d rubbed his skin with worry. He looks like shit today, so different from the night a few weeks ago where he’d looked so good. 

And that’s when Isak puts it together. 

“You’re in love with Adam.” He’s not afraid of Mikael’s anger, if it were to return, or of his hatred. 

He has to be the informed one here, despite being one of the more ignorant members of the cluster (Noora’s a gender studies professor, for fuck’s sake! Why didn't he ask her?), and tell Mikael the truth. 

“I...I…” Mikael can’t speak, just covers his face and wails. _“Fuck!”_

Isak scoots closer to him, a little hesitant, and puts a hand on his back. He doesn’t recoil, doesn’t run away screaming about catching Isak’s disease, and instead turns to look at him, shoulders tense. 

_“‘The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...Against such things there is no law.’”_

“You really think so?” Mikael asks, tears in his eyes in frustration. 

“I do.” Honestly. 

“Thank you.” 

* * *

Isak gets a call on Saturday evening from a teacher at his school. 

He’s casual friends with her, meaning they don’t hang out outside of work, and she sort of annoys him in a generic vapid kind of way. But she’s also kind and funny and gentle, so that makes up for her air-headedness. 

“Isak!” Vilde says brightly, sounding relieved. “Thank God. I am in deep shit and I need your help.” 

“Okay...With what?” 

The school year is over. Isak’s classroom is all cleaned up and locked up tight. What could she want from him during the _summer?_

“There’s an emergency!” 

“An emergency?” 

“Yes! You know how I’m supposed to take the seniors on their class trip this summer?” 

Isak does remember. Vilde had been so excited when she landed the job, because she basically gets paid to go on vacation. Also to babysit a bunch of kids in Venice or Paris or Madrid or wherever where it's legal for them to drink and party and there are no parents around to reign them in. Only her and Mrs. Penderghast, the art teacher. 

Got to be a lot of work that surely isn’t worth the pay. Isak's just glad he didn't get stuck with the job. 

“Well, my co-chaperone—Mrs. Penderghast, the art teacher—just told me she fell and broke her hip, so she can’t come! I can’t do it alone and it’s such short notice that no one at the school wants to do it with me.” 

“Oh, shit, Vilde,” Isak sighs, seeing how tough of a spot she’s in. “That sucks.” 

“So...by any chance...do you have an active passport that’s good for at least six months after August 10th?” 

Isak laughs. He’s not exactly sure what he expected her to say, but this definitely wasn’t it. 

“Where are the kids going this year?” 

“2 weeks in France and Spain.” 

Isak thinks on this. Time in France. He speaks French, now. Even’s also _currently_ in France. 

The opportunity is too much to turn down. It wouldn’t even be suspicious travel, because he’s going for a legitimate reason! 

“How many kids?” 

“Seven, I think.” 

“Are they seniors?” 

“Juniors and seniors, yeah. All old enough to mostly watch themselves!” She’s starting to sound a little desperate now. “And you’d get overtime pay!” 

“My passport is good until next year, I think…” 

“So you’ll come?” 

Isak turns in his kitchen, meets Even’s smirking eyes, and nods.

He looks so sexy when he’s excited. 

“I’ll do it.” 

He could use the money anyway.

* * *

Vilde says she’ll handle most of the arrangements as long as Isak promises not to slip and break his hip anytime soon. He can pretty much guarantee he won’t, so he lets her while he laughs a little. 

He has just over a month to prepare for the trip, a month until he possibly meets Even, so he’s buzzing with excitement. 

It’s all almost sort of ruined when someone actually does slip and fall. It’s not Isak, though. 

In a country far from Isak, a tall man in expensive boots stands on a stage. He has dark hair, a slight beard, and he sings and plays the guitar with passion only someone who is truly in pain can. Yousef is on stage in front of hundreds of Belgians and he’s playing his guitar to a wicked and powerful beat. 

Isak’s heard the song before, one titled l.l.l. It’s beautiful and tragic. Whenever Isak overhears it, he weeps because Yousef’s emotions are so vivid, so visceral, so painful. Isak’s never had a love and lost it, but he might as well have. That’s how the song makes him feel. 

_“‘I will love you with my last dying breath,’”_ Yousef sings as tears fill Isak’s eyes. _“‘My lost lavender oasis.’”_

Isak’s standing beside him on the stage, watching him as he steps up towards the tallest stage. At the last second, someone in the crowd lobs something at him, and Isak is too far away to help. He runs regardless, but the bouquet of flowers slides right beneath his boot and he slips. 

Down 12 or 13 steps, Yousef falls. The crowd is screaming, freaking out, and so is Isak. 

“Yousef!” Isak says, kneeling beside him. “Oh, my God. Are you alright?” 

“Sana,” is all he says, nose dripping a long trail of blood down the side of his cheek. “Sana.” 

And then the connection fizzles and burns as Yousef passes out. 

* * *

Isak can’t reach him! He keeps trying and trying, but nothing! He’s in a complete state of panic, so bad he can’t breathe, and Noora has to push his head between his knees to calm him down enough so he can explain. 

“Yousef fell in Brussels on stage and I can’t reach him!” Isak gasps out. “They’re gonna take him to a hospital—” 

“Oh, no.” Noora’s face grows pale. “Oh, fuck. Let me get the others. You stay here.” 

Isak does as he’s told, because he can’t breathe. The fucking Cannibal is going to eat all of their faces, burn their bodies, and list them as terrorists! Magnus will never know what happened to Isak, will always wonder how he missed it, because he doesn’t know. 

If Isak survives this, he has to tell him. God. No one deserves to be so ignorant of something so important no matter how dense they are!

“What’s wrong with Isak?” Eva asks, appearing in the living room. 

“Panic attack, I think,” Jonas answers, leaning down to take Isak’s pulse. “How do you feel?” 

“Like an elephant is on his chest,” Mahdi answers for him. “And frankly I get it.” 

Isak’s grateful they can sense his feelings, because he doesn’t want to talk. He just needs a minute. Or a few, maybe. 

“What happened, Noora?” Even asks. “Why is he panicking?” 

“Yousef’s in the hospital. Apparently, he fell or something on stage and we can’t reach him now.” 

“I see,” Even says with a sigh.

"Well, fuck." Eva adds, unhelpful. 

Isak shuts his eyes and concentrates on breathing, ignoring the voices in his head. In and out. Slow breaths. Quiet brain. They can solve this. 

But all he can think about is what Eskild said to them all that time ago. 

> _He’s called the Cannibal...because he ate his own cluster, felt their deaths as if they were his own. And now he’s looking for fresh meat.”_

Isak and his cluster are about as fresh as it gets. 

“Can anyone reach him?” Noora asks, voice loud as the others all talk over one another in fear and anxiety. “Everyone, try.” 

Isak, still gasping for air, tries, too.

* * *

Dark brown eyes, always filled with joy and snark and life. So beautiful, so effortless, so painful. She is so smart, the girl with the eyes turned to gold by shining sunrays, that he can’t compete. Just has to laugh and smile and ask for an explanation, because he’s never been a school-smarts kind of guy. Sana, she is a book smarts kind of girl. She’s an _every_ smarts kind of girl, actually. 

He’s always been more into music anyway, more into writing songs and playing with his guitar. She’d liked to hear him explain music theory to her, though, because it was the one thing he knew better than she did. 

He misses her so much it burns. Every cell in his being, every thought in his head, they all lead back to her. If he loves her so much, if she loves him, why does it hurt? What happened between them that so thoroughly ruined whatever wonderful and beautiful thing they had together?

Tears stream down the sides of his face as he cries. Quietly. Afraid to make any noise. 

“Yousef,” a voice says. “Wake up, Yousef. Come on.”

It’s not Sana. He could cry in disappointment. 

“Come back, Yousef. Open your eyes.” 

He doesn’t want to. It’s not his name they’re calling, anyway, so why look? It doesn’t matter either way. 

What _is_ his name, though? He can’t seem to remember. What does his face look like? What color are his eyes? What language does he speak? English, right? 

“Yousef, wake up, love.” 

Same voice, the same wrong name. The word mother comes to mind, but it’s not possible. His mother is dead. He gets the feeling she’s been dead for a long time. 

“Please, just open your eyes.” Mother. Again. _“Anneciğim,_ wake up, my boy.” 

He decides he should probably open his eyes. 

The pain in the front of his head is so strong, though, that it takes him a moment to prepare himself. To get ready. 

He blinks, bright white lights burning his eyes, and turns his eyes toward the voice. A tall woman with tears in her eyes looks at him with shock. 

He recognizes her, but doesn’t. She’s still not his mother. 

Her hair is hidden by a forest green hijab and she wears a long-sleeved shirt and pants. She's staring at him staring at her. She's familiar, about 50 years old, but certainly not his mother. 

“Yousef!” She cries, clutching his hand to her chest. “Thank God!” 

He scowls at her, confused, in pain and unsure of himself. That definitely is not his name, at least. 

“Who are _you?”_ He asks, freeing his hand from hers. “Where am I?” 

_“Neden ingilizce konuşuyorsun?”_ She asks, frowning now, too. 

He can’t understand her now. She’s speaking too quickly or perhaps a different language entirely. 

What the fuck is going on? 

He turns his head quickly, too fast, and black spots dot his vision. He nearly blacks out in pain, because it’s so present, so bright, so intense. It hurts so bad he tears up and he cries out. 

The woman tries to touch him again, tries to comfort him, but he doesn’t want it. 

He doesn’t know who the fuck she is, but she’s certainly not his mother. 

“Who are you?” He asks again, more urgent. “Why am I here? How did I hurt my head?” 

“Yousef,” she says, softly now, “you’re in the hospital. You fell during a show after someone threw a, um...a... _çiçek buketi_...flowers at you...and you fell.” 

She speaks English now, but why? He knows Turkish...or does he? 

This is all so confusing. 

“A show?” 

“You’re a singer,” she says slowly, looking upset, “and a guitarist.” 

“Am I?” 

“Yes.” 

Pain slices through his forehead again and he winces, reaching up to press his hands over his eyes to shield them from the light. When he looks at them, there are rings on his fingers he doesn’t recognize and his nails are painted dark blue. He’s never really worn polish before, but it looks nice with the golden rings, one of which holds a deep navy stone. 

Sapphire, for his birthday. But wait. His birthday isn’t in September...or is it? 

He groans again, so utterly confused, and looks down towards the hospital door. A man stands there, one with perfect skin and sharp cheekbones. He has long, curly dark hair and a silver chain glints at his throat. 

He, the boy in the bed, knows there’s a crescent moon hanging from the chain. How he knows, he isn’t sure. 

“Where am I?” The dark-haired boy asks. “What are you doing?” 

“You’re Yousef,” the boy in the bed says. “Why does she keep calling me that?”

“Because you’re me and I’m you.” 

“What?” 

“You’re Isak and I’m Yousef.” 

Isak sounds better. Feels more true. 

“Who is Sana?” Isak asks, embracing his new name and this new person. “Why do you hurt so badly?” 

“You know why, Isak. Remember.” 

Isak furrows his eyebrows and tries. 

“You’re American,” Yousef says softly, creeping closer to the bed, “and you live in Seattle. You’re a teacher. You’re gay.” 

“I am,” Isak says immediately. “You’re Yousef...you sing. Play the guitar. I...I know why you hurt now.” 

“Sana,” he says with effort. “But I have to move on and so do you.” 

“We were worried about you.” 

Isak can remember now. He remembers the Cannibal, remembers the fall, remembers Noora’s concerned face, his panic attack. Remembers losing himself, just for a moment, in a desperate attempt to protect his friend, his family. 

“Did they take any scans of your brain?” Isak asks, squinting under the light. 

“Not that I know of. Not yet, at least.” 

“You have to get out of here before they do, Yousef. If those scans come back with Analog’s Syndrome, you know what will happen.” 

“The Cannibal,” he whispers, nodding gently. “I know. I’ll handle it.” 

“Okay...your head really hurts.” 

Yousef’s grin is fragile and funny and unique when he says, “Well, I did fall down a flight of stairs, Isak. What did you expect?”

* * *

Yousef breaks out of the hospital after announcing he feels fine. The doctor tells him, in Dutch, that he has a concussion and begs him to reconsider leaving the hospital without a scan. Yousef refuses, makes somewhat of a diva pop-star rich-person scene, and gets his discharge paperwork quickly. Isak knows he feels bad about acting like an asshole, but he’s keeping them safe, so Isak tries to reassure him that it’s okay. 

It has to be. There isn't any other choice, really. 

Yousef also gets a talking to from his mother, which he ignores, but all in all, everyone is safe.

Yousef promises the cluster he won’t be alone, so he doesn’t die in his sleep, but they all come to his hotel room and crash in various spots around the place anyway. No one else shows up, so it’s a good thing he has them to watch over him. 

It’s a sleepover in the most comfortable of ways, despite all the time differences, because it’s the weekend for them all. 

If their sleep schedules are messed up, so be it. Isak’s on summer vacation, Noora’s unable to be employed yet in the US, Jonas is sleeping in for once, Even’s actually sleeping at a normal time for France, and Eva’s enjoying their first Saturday off in months. 

Isak doesn’t notice at first, but Mikael is there, too. Asleep in an armchair near the large window wearing a sweatshirt that Isak knows is Adam’s. 

It feels like a good sign, so he just settles into bed in his home and in Yousef’s hotel room, surrounded by his cluster and tries to sleep. 

After the night they’ve all had, it’s not easy work, but he manages.

* * *

When he wakes, he’s alone. Or, he thinks he’s alone. 

He crawls out of his bed in his underwear and goes to get a drink of water from the fridge. The sun outside is high in the sky and the clock on the microwave says 11:21. Still early, then. 

Maybe Isak can go back to bed! Oh, joy!

He turns to close the fridge and is scared half to death by Mikael, who sits on the counter beside the fridge. He’s still in Adam’s hoodie, still looking as sleepy and ruffled as he had on that armchair in Brussels, but he's just sitting there. Quiet. 

Isak shuts the fridge and sighs, heart pounding from residual fear in his chest. 

“Yes?” He asks wearily. 

“You said your mother...was like my mother?” 

“Homophobic?” Isak furrows his brow. “Yes.” 

“And she’s dead?” 

“Yeah.” 

“How?” He’s whispering like he’s going to wake the dead. “How did she…?” 

“Well, she had cancer, but after my dad left, she couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t get out of bed for weeks and one day, I opened her bedroom door and found her. She’d taken all of her pain pills and died...while I was out stealing shit from the gas station around with my friends.” 

“Oh, my God,” Mikael says with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. “She killed herself?” 

“Yeah,” Isak swallows hard as the memory resurfaces. “Yeah, she did.” 

Isak was only 12 when she was diagnosed. 13 when his dad left. 14 when she committed suicide. 

He’d been so traumatized that he blocked it all out for a while. For 6 months while his dad dated a 21-year old, Isak was so consumed by grief he repressed it all in an effort to survive. 

Of course, it caught up to him later, though. 

He can remember parts of it now, finding her body, the empty bottle of Oxy that thudded to the floor as he reached for her. Remembers her body, stiff with rigor mortis, as he shook her hard, the tears that blinded him as he called 911. Remembers his father taking 3 hours to get to the hospital, remembers sitting in the waiting room all alone, remembers the betrayal and the anger he'd felt. 

“Isak, that’s awful.” His face truly says what he feels. 

Empathy. Not just sympathy, but he truly feels Isak’s pain as if it was his own, because it is. Mikael is opening up to Isak in ways that had before been impossible. 

He's so glad Mikael isn't planning on sending the Cannibal to their doorsteps. 

“I know,” Isak says solemnly, looking away and then looking back. “I know it’s awful...but if she was still here, I’d still tell her I’m gay...even if it hurt her. Especially if it did.” 

“Why?”

“Because I’m her son...I will always be her son. She has a right to know who I am and who I always will be. A true mother would love her child in all forms.” 

Isak gets the feeling this is what Mikael is here for. Reassurance, a friend.

Mikael looks down at his clenched hands, at his wrists in Adam’s sweatshirt. Takes a deep, exhausting breath. 

“Will you come with me?”

* * *

Isak is seated on a bench beside Mikael and his mother, trying his best to be supportive. He’s never come out to anyone before, not really, so he’s no expert, but this doesn’t seem to be going very well. They're having weird, stilted small talk and eating tamales. 

“Lovely day today,” his mom says. “Perfect day for an early dinner with my son.” 

She’s an older woman, probably mid 50’s, with grey streaks through her dark hair. She wears a blue dress with a black jacket over top, overdressed for this casual restaurant. 

She seems a little stiff to Isak, a little snooty, but maybe that’s just because he doesn’t know her. He can’t pretend to make assumptions on a woman he’s never even spoken to, but she's weird to him regardless. 

“I’m glad you could make time,” Mikael says, between bites of his tamales. 

Isak can taste them; they’re delicious. Spicy and rich and luxurious. Isak’s never had food like that, something made by someone so expert at it that it’s effortless. Something that tastes like home. 

“For you? Always.” Her smile is bright, despite her previous behavior. “Now tell me, what bothers you?” 

“Well, mama, I...There’s something I have to tell you.” 

“Yes, _mijo?”_

“I know you’re not going to like this...I know you think it’s wrong and that it’s a disease, but, _mamá…”_

Mikael turns to look at Isak. Isak is proud of him and happy for him, but nervous for her reaction. He just has to be here for Mikael, no matter the response. 

“You can do this. She’s your _mamá;_ she’ll always love you.” 

Mikael nods and his mother says, “What, _mijo?_ What is it?”

“I’m gay.” 

Silence. Isak can physically hear the sound of Mikael’s chest hammering inside his ribcage. Can feel it, too, because his is doing the same thing. Like a fucking drum. 

For some reason, it’s like Isak’s mom is alive again, like she’s here with them, and Isak’s spilling his heart out to her, because he loves her, and she’s supposed to love him no matter what, and the anxiety is suffocating him as he waits for her response. 

He takes Mikael’s hand, unsure of if it'll end with a red mark on his cheek or a bloody nose, but he just holds Isak’s hand as tightly as he can. A lifeline for two people who are so alike and so different. Who are having the same conversation with different people--one dead, one alive. 

“What?” Her face is confused, confusing. “You’re... _gay?”_

“Yes, _mamá._ I’ve always been...gay...and I,” he sighs, “I was hiding it from myself and from my friends and family because I was afraid. I was terrified of what you and they would say. How you in particular would react. If you’d hate... _me_ or be disgusted by me...or...or…or not want me to be your son anymore...but I can’t live like this anymore.” 

Her face is one Isak can’t read. It doesn’t make any sense to him, the upturn of her eyebrows, the pressed together mouth, the dimple in her cheek. None of those things seem to belong together, but Mikael must recognize the look on her face, because his face falls. 

_“Mamá?”_

“I have to go.” 

“Wait, no—” 

“Don’t touch me.” Her voice is flat, emotionless. 

Isak’s heart breaks for him. 

_“Mamá!”_ He whispers, looking so broken that Isak wants to hold him tight and scream at that woman. 

What kind of mother would do something like this? How can she bear to see him look like that, knowing she’s the one who caused it? 

“I won’t enable this behavior, Mikael.” 

“I’ve always been this way. I was born like this.”

“No, you chose it. You’re sick.” 

“God made me gay. How could I be sick if I was born like this? He made me, us, in his image.” 

“Maybe...but I won’t have a gay son.” 

She stands and leaves, clutching her purse to her chest like Mikael’s going to steal it. Mikael slumps down in his seat, looking down at his tamales with a vacant stare. He's shaking a little, like he's cracking a part in an earthquake that's only affecting him. 

Isak, hesitant, puts his free hand on his shoulder. 

“Do you think your mom would have said _that_ to you?” He asks, looking up with tears in his eyes. “Do you think she’d have disowned you for being this way?” 

“I don’t know, Mikael...but I do know that while this will be very hard, you’ll be better off in the long run. You can’t change who you are.” 

“I know,” he shuts his eyes for a moment, drawing them into Isak’s house. “I just wish she could’ve...could’ve said something that was nice. Kind.” 

“Is she normally kind?” 

Isak gets the feeling she isn’t.

“Kind isn’t the word I’d use, no. But she’s my mom.” 

Isak wraps his arm over Mikael’s shoulders to hold him close, because he feels so helpless. Feels Mikael’s anxiety, his pain. Wants to bear it with him, so he doesn’t have to do it alone. 

Mikael stiffens up at his touch, but doesn’t shake him off. 

“She’ll come around. She has to.” 

Mikael nods, reaches up to hold Isak’s wrist with one hand. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath as Isak feels his pain. 

“Thank you.” 

“Of course, Mikael,” Isak whispers. “We’re family now. You and me and the others. We share a bond and nothing is ever gonna change that. ” 

“Promise?” Like a child, gentle, quiet, afraid. 

Isak might cry yet. 

“Promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!


	5. oasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ménage à six, a battle for poland, a shakespearean ghost, and two coming out stories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: sex! 
> 
> this took me literal months and it's only like 4k, but i feel bad lol. plus i want to move on from this part, so i gotta get it done. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! (also don't come for me if the sex scene/song lyrics are terribly written bc i suck at them. be forewarned lol)

Isak has to return to school to pick up, of all things, his passport, which he left in his desk. He usually is more careful about where he leaves it, since it’s kind of important, but a few weeks before the end of classes, he had to go to the DMV to update his photo ID and it’s the only thing he owns that verifies his identity. After returning to work, he placed it in his desk in an effort to keep it safe. 

So he returns and grabs it, sighing at himself, and exits his classroom. He locks it up behind him and turns around, facing a long, locker-lined hallway. It's dark except for the red glow of the emergency lights every ten feet or so, which gives the school an ominous, unsettling feeling. 

Isak's been here enough, though, to ignore it. 

Far in the distance, a man is walking toward him with an uneven gate, limping a little. He’s quite a large man, podgy and round, but it’s only when the light from the emergency exit crosses over his face that Isak remembers him. 

His father. His _genetic_ father. 

He’s been dead for almost 2 years, though, so this makes no sense. He’s wearing well-worn clothes like he used to, working clothes, and his face is slack. Vacant. A house with no one home. 

Isak inhales sharply, afraid and confused.

“Dad?” Isak asks, stepping away from him with his eyes open wide. “How are you here?” 

Isak’s relationship with his father was rocky at the best of times. He abandoned his mother after she got sick and then remarried shortly after her death. Isak, an angsty and rightfully angry teen at the time, fucked shit up for the entirety of his adolescence. Drinking, property destruction, theft. 

His dad used to get so mad his face would puff up like a loaf of bread as it rose, turned bright red in fury as he screamed until he spit. Now, though, his face is as blank as a slate. Emotionless as the wind. 

“Dad?” Isak asks again, taking a step back again as he nears. 

His back hits his classroom door hard and he realizes he's trapped. There's nowhere else to go. 

_“Gå tilbake,”_ Terje says and his voice is as dead as he should be. “Go back before it’s too late.” 

“Back where?” He asks, wary of his nearness. “What are you talking about?” 

_“Han kommer._ он идет.” Isak almost doesn't notice in his panic, but his father is speaking Russian. 

His _Norwegian_ father who, due to a poor education, could barely speak Norwegian, was speaking Russian. What the fuck is going on!

The emptiness in his father's eyes is suddenly replaced with urgency as he reaches for Isak, pleading with him now in an agonized voice. 

He grabs Isak's arms, pinning him to the door, and his nails dig into his skin. He's sobbing now, shaking relentlessly as his father squeezes him tighter with every word. 

“Turn back, Isak! Turn back or _du blir spist!_ He’s coming!” Tears stream down his face as Isak tries to free himself, panic making his reckless, pushing his dad’s arms off of him. _“Han kommer! он идет!”_

Isak screams once, short and loud and deafening, and then he’s gone. His father is gone. 

Isak, heart beat pounding in his ears, looks around, panting, and presses a hand to his chest, slumping back against his door as he sobs again. 

“What the fuck just happened?!" 

He stands there, frozen, for a few moments until his pulse calms down. He has to get the fuck out of there before the ghost returns. His dead father just came back from the fucking grave to give him a warning like he’s in a Shakespearean play or something. What the fuck! 

In a rush of adrenaline, he books it out of the school, only pausing long enough to make sure the door is locked behind him. As he walks, he reaches out for someone, anyone, who can help him make sense of what just fucking happened. 

Mahdi, despite the late hour, is awake and smiling at him pleasantly when he arrives. 

“Hey, Isak,” he says calmly. “How’s it going?” 

“I...I just saw my father...who has been dead for 2 years.” 

“What?” Mahdi stands up, wrapping his blanket around him tightly as he approaches Isak. “Your _real_ dad?” 

“Yes…” Isak winds his fingers on the edge of his t-shirt, feeling cold to the bone. “He warned me...that someone was coming.” 

“Are you cold?” Mahdi asks, drawing them in Seattle. "I can feel the chill in your bones."

It’s a warm day there, but still, he’s freezing. He’s also walking around aimlessly, searching for something he can’t name. 

“A little.”

Mahdi winds the woven blanket over both of their shoulders, drawing them in close. Isak shivers, but Mahdi’s skin is warm, so he feels a little better. Warmer. Safer now that he's with Mahdi, now that he isn't alone. 

“What did he say?” 

“He warned me that someone was coming...that I should go back.” 

“Go back where?” Mahdi wonders, rhetorically. “Who? This is all strange.” 

“The look on his face...I’ve never seen him look like that. For all his flaws, my dad was never...emotionless...like that. If anything, he had too many emotions.” 

Mahdi nods, probably sensing Isak’s unease himself, and sighs. 

“We need to tell the others. They’re probably wondering why they suddenly feel sick to their stomachs.” 

Isak’s own nausea, the one he’s causing amongst his cluster, turns his stomach into anxious knots. If he wasn’t shivering so hard, perhaps he would vomit. 

“I’ll get them, alright? You just gotta get home safely.” 

Isak nods, walking through the streets on wobbly knees, with barely a purpose in mind. 

His apartment. He can do it. 

He passes restaurants and thrift stores and statues until he’s standing in front of his building and taking the elevator up. The entire time, as he stares at himself in the metal walls, he sees what his cluster will see. 

Dread. 

When he walks inside his apartment after unlocking the door, Noora is waiting for him, wringing her hands raw. Behind her, Eva sits beside Mikael and Yousef, both dressed as if ready for a night on the town. Jonas and Even wait at the kitchen counter, talking with Mahdi, now dressed in pajamas with his blanket still draped over his shoulders. 

At the sight of him, they all stop what they’re doing to face him, wearing the same look of concern and anxiety. 

“So, _mon americain,_ are you going to tell us or should we dig through your brain to find it ourselves?” Even asks, smirking a little despite his obvious worry. 

And so he does. 

Once he’s done, they all look at him in horror. 

“Your dead dad,” Yousef says slowly, “came back to haunt you?” 

“Was it like this? Did he feel like another sensate?” Eva asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

“No, it was...weird. He both was and wasn’t my dad. I could...could feel something wrong, but…” 

“He said _he_ was coming,” Even says bluntly, looking up at Isak’s face, at all of their faces. “The Cannibal.” 

Isak nods, feeling somber and anxious, as Noora wraps her arms around him and holds him tight. He’s so cold still, frozen to the bone, that her warmth only slightly helps. 

“And he said to go back,” Mahdi whispers. “Go back where?” 

“To Belgium?” Yousef wonders. "To Russia?"

“Don’t you think someone would have come to you?” Noora asks gently. “Someone one of us who had left knew?” 

“What if it’s about Eskild?” Jonas asks 

“We need help,” Even says flatly and then, as if between one second and the next, he’s next to Isak, too, holding his icy hands in his. “Call Eskild.” 

His eyes burn like flames, as blue as the sky, and Isak nods, terrified and panicked and dead inside. 

Eskild may know something about seeing dead people with weird ominous messages, though, and if it could protect his cluster, Isak has to do it. He has to. 

When Isak steps into Eskild’s world, it’s to a dark bedroom with the curtains drawn. A large full moon peaks out over a large expanse of trees in the distance. Eskild sits at the sill, almost entirely naked, minus tiny briefs and socks. 

He looks so forlorn that Isak can feel it in his own chest like marbles, rattling and weighing him down. 

“Eskild,” he says gently, trying not to startle him. 

“Isak,” he says back, not turning away from the window, one hand fisted in the curtains. “How’s it going?”

“Honestly, I’ve been better.” 

“Me, too,” Eskild says flatly. “There is just...so much darkness in this world.” 

Isak looks around, unsure if Eskild is talking to him, and says nothing. 

“Did you need something?” He turns, finally, and Isak sees his face is marred. 

A black and blue mark covers his right eye and his nose looks broken. His lip is cut, but not actively bleeding, and he is in more than just physical pain. Isak can tell by the look in his eyes. 

He can also tell Eskild distinctly doesn't want to talk about it, which Isak can respect. 

“I’m seeing ghosts,” Isak says quickly, “and they’re telling me the Cannibal is coming for us.” 

Eskild smiles in a way that makes Isak roll his eyes. A little deprecating, a lot amused. 

“Never a dull day when you’re a dad,” Eskild says, and then they’re in Isak’s living room. 

Isak looks at his cluster, feeling exhausted and still shivering, and reaches for the quilt on the back of his couch. He tugs it over his shoulders as he tells Eskild about the vision of the old Norwegian circus man. 

“Was his voice his?” Eskild asks, sitting on the edge of the coffee table like he’s comfortable, despite being almost entirely naked. “Did he use words he would’ve?” 

“Yeah...he...he used Norwegian...which he used to do a lot growing up.” 

And a little Russian...but that can't be important, right? Maybe Isak even made it up. Everything was moving so fast, was so completely wild, that he truly can't remember if ti actually happened. 

“Your dad's Norwegian?” Mahdi asks incredulously. 

“He was an immigrant, yeah.” Isak wishes he could've told him in a different way that he, even pre-Sensorium birth, could speak Norwegian, but he just. What other way was there?

“The psycellium,” Eskild says loudly and then pauses, looks over one shoulder as if talking to someone. “It, uh, can sometimes talk to us, in a way. It’s...complicated.” 

“So I’m talking to myself?” Isak asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

He’s taunting himself with images of his dead dad? Weird as fuck. 

“Not quite.” He pauses again, this time for longer, as he listens. “It’s more like your collective mind.” 

“So we as a whole are torturing Isak with images of his dad?” Noora asks once Isak tells the group what Eskild has said. 

Eskild waits for Isak to ask Noora's question and then says, “Again, not quite, but closer. Think of it this way, you each make up a portion of the psycellium, which is in itself one entity. The eight of you are not necessarily separate beings, not anymore, so your minds are interconnected. Strings of information making up a web." 

This is not news to Isak. He had figured as much since he can now speak 12 languages and used to only speak 2. 

“So what are we trying to tell ourselves?” Yousef asks and Isak repeats it. 

“To be careful. Sometimes, our conscious minds are so busy they don’t notice subtle things. Nuances.” 

“So it’s a message for me. That someone’s watching _me.”_

“Perhaps,” Eskild agrees. “Or maybe your psycellium is just being cautious. Hard to tell until it’s too late.” 

“Fuck,” Isak says flatly. “Do I leave? Flee Seattle for another country?” 

“Aren’t you leaving anyway?” Noora asks, only hearing what Isak’s saying. “To France?” 

“I’d suggest you go as long as it’s not suspicious travel to keep up appearances. Travelling with a bunch of kids for school isn’t suspicious, I don’t think,” Eskild says thoughtfully. 

“Maybe meeting up might be risky, though.” Mikael looks afraid for him. 

Afraid and _present._ It’s such a strange juxtaposition from their last urgent group meeting that Isak finds it hard to swallow. Unnerving in addition to all the other shit going on. 

“Maybe,” Even agrees with a sigh. “But we may not get the chance again...and we have to distribute the blockers.”

“It may not even mean anything, of course,” Eskild says, obviously trying to mollify them. “But just...be careful, okay? Call me anytime.” 

“Okay,” Isak says softly, starting to feel his fingers again. “Thanks, Eskild.” 

Eskild’s smile is gentle and fragile when he says, “What are dads for?” And then he’s gone. 

* * *

Isak sits in two places at once. 

In one place, he’s across from Magnus and beside Mikael at a restaurant, drinking beer and eating a burger. In the other, he’s between Mikael and Mikael’s friend, Adam, on a bench in a park somewhere. Isak’s restaurant is cold from the air conditioning and Mikael’s bench is directly under the bright sun, scorching the top of his shoulders and his nose. 

Two places, so different, but for the same purpose, with the same thought in mind. 

“Magnus,” Isak says as Magnus shoves an entire mozzarella stick in his mouth whole, “there’s something I gotta tell you.” 

Isak knows Magnus will be fine with this, because, well, he just knows. But he’s still nervous. 

“Shoot.” 

“I’m gay,” Isak says simply, ripping off the bandaid. 

“Oh, shit, man. So Emma?” 

“A beard, I guess. Though, mutually unknowingly.” Isak shrugs, not entirely sure. “Because I’m gay, so.” 

“I’m happy for you, Isak,” Magnus says, smiling as he shoves another mozzarella stick in his mouth. “Glad you found yourself and won’t be reuniting with her. The you who was with her was not the you I know you are inside. Does that make sense?” 

Isak laughs, but he’s still nervous. Sick with it. He realizes the why has nothing to do with Magnus at all. 

“Adam,” Mikael is saying, looking down the street in Mexico City at a young boy teasing his sister with a kite string. “There’s something I have to tell you.” 

“What’s that, Mika?” He turns to him, grinning against the brilliant sunlight. “Got a girlfriend? She pregnant?” 

Adam is beautiful, too, Isak notices. His hair glows like a lion’s mane in the sunlight and his smile is effervescent. 

Isak sorta gets his appeal.

“I’m gay.” 

Isak raises his eyebrows, watching the emotions play of Adam’s face. Blankness, amusement, pain, confusion. 

“You’re gay?”

“I...yes. I told my mama already.”

“How’d she take it?” Adam’s face is like stone and Isak worries for Mikael. 

Can he handle the rejection if it comes? 

“Not...well.” 

“Didn’t think so,” Adam says, turning away sharply to look at the knee of his jeans. “It’s okay, Mika. I understand.” 

“You...understand?” Hope, like a night flower, blooms in the darkness of Mikael's heart. 

Isak knows before he does that its life will be shortlived. Agonized. Dreadful. 

“I...Well, I understand why you had to tell me,” Adam says softly, crushing Mikael with his next few words. “I just wish you hadn’t.” 

Mikael is in so much _pain._

Isak can feel it as if it was his own pain, tearing up his internal organs like razor blades, and he takes a shuddering breath. Mikael’s eyes fill with tears and they streak down his face as Adam refuses to meet his eyes. 

“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” Adam says after a long moment. “So...let’s just forget you said anything, alright? Go back to before?” 

Isak reaches out to touch his shoulder, to feel the tenseness in Mikael’s posture, and realizes he’s as rigid as a board. Isak stares at Adam, at Mikael’s best friend, who is such a huge fucking disappointment, and he fills with rage. 

He’s angry on behalf of Mikael, who is so sad he aches, and he responds for him when Mikaels shows he’s speechless. 

He instinctually knows he has to protect Mikael, has to defend him, because no one deserves this. No one. Especially someone as soft and gentle at heart as Mikael. 

“No,” Isak says brutally, savagely. “We can’t fucking go back to that, Adam. This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been. So _fuck_ you, you homophobic piece of shit!” 

Isak grabs Mikael’s hand, yanks him up, and storms out of the park in a fit of horrified, homophobe-induced rage. 

When they’re far enough away, Isak turns to embrace Mikael tightly, because it sucks. The whole thing just fucking sucks. 

Isak gets a good coming out, but all of Mikael’s have sucked. 

“He hates me now,” Mikael sobs and they flash into the restaurant in Seattle just long enough for Isak to realize Magnus is gone, over at the bar. Flirting with the bartender. 

“No, no,” Isak says sharply. “He’s just confused, alright? If he can’t accept you, then you deserve better, Mikael. You deserve to be happy. And free.” 

Mikael nods, pulls back. His face is red and tear-streaked, broken hearted. Isak’s heart aches for him, for his pain. For his cruel existence. 

“I’m sorry, Mikael,” Isak says gently. “I’m sorry things didn’t go like we’d hoped.” 

Mikael starts walking towards his apartment, forlorn and lost and hurt. 

“I should’ve known better,” Mikael says cruelly, to himself, as he goes. “I don’t deserve love; I never have.” 

The connection, which had been strong and open, collapses, leaving Isak alone in a booth in a shitty Seattle restaurant once again. 

The last thing he hears is Mikael's sob as he rounds the corner. It just about breaks Isak's heart into a millions jagged pieces. 

* * *

“I’m just worried about him, you know?” Isak says softly, laying in the circle of Jonas’ arms, their legs tangled. “I don’t know if he can...handle it.” 

“I feel it, too,” Jonas admits with a sigh, puffing warmth onto Isak’s forehead. “He has us now to rely on, Isak. I think he can do it.” 

“I hope so,” Isak says softly, thinking of how lonely Mikael is despite the connection, of how obsessed with being self-sufficient he is. 

He can somehow tell that Mikael is going to need their help and soon. Something big is coming, in more ways than one, and they have to prepare for it. Have to prepare him for it most of all. 

Isak doesn’t have the energy to worry about that now. He’s preparing for his own storm and it involves 10 wild children on a plane in France with only _Vilde_ to help him out. 

“I can’t believe you’re going to see Even,” Jonas whispers, pressing his lips to Isak’s temple. “I have to admit I’m jealous.” 

“Of who?” 

Isak feels Jonas’ smile against his skin, soft, gentle, incredible, “Both of you.” 

Something shifts between them, a curtain falls, a window opens. Isak turns his head, lifts his chin, and his mouth finds Jonas’. 

It’s hot in Isak’s bedroom, air conditioner off, but in Perth, it’s cool, surprisingly. Jonas’ bed is soft and plush beneath him as they kiss, as soft as the sea at low tide. 

“Isak,” Jonas whispers, his hands ghosting across Isak’s skin, under the back of his shirt, over the softness of his ribs, up the length of his spine. 

It feels so good, so impossibly good, that Isak hopes he never stops touching him. Jonas pushes Isak’s shirt off, lips barely leaving his mouth long enough to remove it, and then he’s back. The warmth of Jonas beneath him, of his hands, is the best feeling in the world. 

Isak sits up on his knees, pulls Jonas’ shirt off, and now they’re chest to chest, skin to skin, bared for the other to see. 

Isak kisses him like it hurts, fingers trailing across his chest, over his ribs, down to his hip bones. His skin is so warm, so full of life, that it brings Isak back to life, too. Brings warmth back into his fingertips, his lips, the skin beneath his collarbones. 

“Can I?” Jonas asks, touching the waistband of Isak’s pants. 

He’s wearing sweats, so he slips them off easily, taking his time only with Jonas’, teasing him with his tongue, with the soft brushes of his fingertips. 

“You look so beautiful,” Isak whispers, his face by his hips. “God, Jonas.”

Jonas writhes a little, lifts his hips in expectation, but Isak’s too determined to be swayed. He sits back up, catches Jonas’ mouth in a burning kiss, and when he opens his eyes, it’s Even’s face in front of his instead. 

Even kisses him softly, languidly, like he has all the time in the world to do it. Like there’s nothing else he’d rather do. Isak grinds down purposefully, aware of the situation, of his dick, hard against Even's hip, aware of Jonas’ appearance behind him now, chest pressed hotly against his back, covering him. He feels kisses down his side, hands on his hips, mouths on his neck. Too many for just the two boys for sure, but Isak doesn’t care. It feels so impossibly good, so ridiculously frustratingly intense, that he finds himself hoping this moment, whatever it may be, will never end. 

Isak is suddenly somewhere else, he is somewhere else and somehow still there, in between many worlds. He’s there, with Noora and with Eva as they kiss, as Eva’s hands cup Noora’s bare breasts, as Mahdi’s back and shoulders tighten with effort as he holds himself up over his girlfriend, as Jonas’ mouth bites just a little at the slope of Even’s neck. 

He is there with them, he is here with himself, he is all of them, and most of all he is himself. 

He reaches out, feeling their feelings, feeling his own, and caresses the long line of Eva’s shoulder, lets them press kisses into the space between his collarbones. Jonas’ hands are on his thighs, Even’s are on his chest, and their mouths are everywhere. Teasing, tugging, kissing, touching. 

Isak is there, too, tracing the long line of Mahdi’s spine with his fingers, kissing his shoulder, kissing Noora, kissing Eva. 

It’s not weird, it’s not even strange. It feels so right, like this was meant to be. They’re connected, they are one. 

This is just another benefit of their bond. Immense, never-ending pleasure. To and fro. Back and forth. 

Jonas’ mouth closes over the head of his dick and Isak’s too overwhelmed to do anything but moan. Mahdi’s hands trace his face, his neck, the slope of his chest. Noora's pressing open mouth kisses against Eva's skin, hot and warm and wet, as Eva's grips Isak's hand in theirs. 

It is all so much, so much and just enough, that Isak’s going to come soon. He wants to hold out, wants so much more than he’s gotten to experience, but he knows it’s ending. 

He shares a kiss, open mouth and breathless, with Even as he palms him over his underwear. He feels Even's pleasure, feels his exuberance, feels the high of being loved and touched and seen.

 _“Mon amour,”_ Even whispers, gasping. _“Je pense que je vais mourir.”_

 _“Moi, aussi,”_ Isak whispers, feeling so close he can hardly stand it. 

Jonas’ mouth, their hands, they touch him gently, so softly it’s impossible to forget. His mouth is hot and tight and it feels so good around his dick, so infinite. 

It feels so fucking good. 

“Fuck,” Isak moans. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

“Oh, my God,” Eva says and Isak watches the quiver of their shoulders, the shake of their arms, as Noora kneels between their thighs, hidden from sight. “Noora, _putain.”_

He feels their pleasure, feels their joy, he feels his own, he feels everyone’s. 

He comes with Even’s mouth on his nipple, with Mahdi’s hand in his hair, with his dick in Jonas’ mouth, with Eva's hand still in his. 

It’s the best head he’s ever gotten. Nothing will ever stack up to this, never. 

He collapses back on the bed, a groan tearing from his throat, covered in sweat, dead to the world. 

He can do nothing but watch, exhausted, on his back, as the escapade continues around him. Eva and Noora, Mahdi and Eva, Jonas and Even, Jonas and Noora, mouths and skin and breasts and beauty and pleasure and joy. So much fucking _joy._

* * *

Isak spends the next 12 hours full of nervous excitement, awaiting his travel. 

He meets Vilde at the school, almost shaking with the memory of his father in these very halls, but ignoring it to the best of his ability. He has things to do, children to protect, planes to board. He can't be stuck here, wondering if he's going to survive the day before the Cannibal comes and swallows him whole. 

Vilde is looking bright and cheery as she waits outside the gymnasium, hair in a high ponytail, a hat pulled on over top. She’s got two bags at her feet, both unnecessarily large, and lavender purple. 

Isak thinks again of Yousef’s song, l.l.l. and it’s sad, ringing lyrics. 

> _I have loved you more than death loves life,_
> 
> _More than fire loves oxygen._
> 
> _More than the reaper loves his scythe._
> 
> _I have loved you forever and I always will._
> 
> _My lost lavender oasis._
> 
> _I am sick of fucking pretending_
> 
> _I am nothing without your eyes on me,_
> 
> _Not worth even my own time._
> 
> _My misery, it is unending._
> 
> _I will love you to my very last breath,_
> 
> _My lost lavender oasis._

Their students arrive slowly, one by one, until all 10 are in front of them and patiently waiting with their bags. None of them has a bag nearly as big as Vilde's and it makes Isak laugh a little at the sight. Leave it to Vilde. 

“Who’s read to go?” Vilde asks in her slightly pitchy, excited voice. “I know I am!” 

Isak shares a look with the kids, all around 17 or 18, and wonders if he’s going to survive this trip. Vilde’s never-ending optimism might just crush him from the inside out. 

He looks over at the window and sees Even in the reflection, sees him grinning back at him in an expensive suit, and knows that no matter the suffering, he’s worth it. 

He’s worth ever fucking unbearable, pitchy second. 

Isak can’t wait to be in fucking France. Can't wait to be fucking him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think! it makes my day when i see someone has commented and, since i live on positive feedback, i'd really appreciate it. 
> 
> à bientôt!


End file.
